California is adding 4 to 6 million people to the list of eligibility to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, but officials warn that vaccination remains a frustrating process as long as the chronic shortage of supplies remains.
From March 15, people aged between 16 and 64 with disabilities or at high risk of morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19 will be eligible for vaccination. This will raise the total number of eligible Californians from 17 to 20 million.
But with supplies so limited, it will ultimately be up to local suppliers to decide who gets the vaccine right away, with medical professionals, first responders, people aged 65 and over, teachers and essential professionals, all competing for vaccines.
“We are all frustrated,” said Dr. Paul Simon, director of science for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. “We know that we could do a lot more if we had the doses available.”
“Prioritizing who receives doses does not give us more doses, and that is what we need,” added Kat DeBurgh, executive director of Health Officers Assn. from California.
Scarcity reigns
Some parts of California have had to postpone vaccination for certain eligible groups in the face of insufficient remittances, while others had to cut about how many people receive the first dose to ensure that enough injections are available to give people the required second dose.
In Los Angeles, some vaccination sites that were already scheduled to close on Friday due to a shortage of supplies ran out of doses earlier than expected and had to start rejecting people on Thursday.
Of the 219,700 doses that arrived this week, more than half will be needed to give a second injection, according to Simon.
“This is simply to fulfill our commitment to ensure that everyone who received the first doses three to four weeks ago receives a second dose,” he said during a meeting on Friday. “But there will be a large number of doses available as first doses. It will be less than 50%, but still a significant number. “
The priority for the first available doses, he added, will be the communities that have been hardest hit by the pandemic “to ensure that we are reaching those most at risk”.
Health officials across the state say their ability to distribute vaccines far exceeds the number of doses available to date. In LA County, for example, Simon said that providers could probably administer up to 600,000 doses a week if they had the supply.
8.1 million doses delivered
So far, about 8.1 million doses of vaccine Was delivered across California, and nearly 5.3 million were administered, according to data compiled by The Times.
There is hope that an influx of inoculations is on the way. President Biden announced on Thursday that his government had guaranteed a total of 600 million doses, divided equally between Pfizer and Moderna, to be delivered at the end of July. That would be enough to completely vaccinate the approximately 260 million people eligible for vaccines across the country.
“We can’t move fast enough,” said Governor Gavon Newsom earlier this week. “We are sober; we are aware of the scarcity of vaccines available in the United States of America. However, we are not naive about our responsibility here in the state of California to remove these vaccines from freezers and place them in people’s arms. ”
Vaccine shortages have become a chronic problem. Los Angeles vaccination sites that have been scheduled to close friday due to scarcity of supply The doses ran out earlier than expected and had to send people away on Thursday.
Scarcity has increased concerns about vaccine supply amid a week already mired in unpredictability, with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Wednesday calling vaccine supply issues “a huge obstacle in our race to vaccinate the angelenos.”
“We are vaccinating people faster than new bottles are arriving here in Los Angeles, and I am very concerned now,” said Garcetti.
Who is now qualified?
Those who will be eligible in March include those with:
- Cancer, current with weakened or immunocompromised status
- Chronic kidney disease, stage 4 or higher
- Oxygen-dependent chronic lung disease
- Down’s syndrome
- Immunocompromised state (weakened immune system) of solid organ transplant
- Pregnancy
- Sickle cell anemia
- Heart problems, such as heart failure, coronary artery disease or cardiomyopathies (excludes hypertension)
- Severe obesity (body mass index greater than or equal to 40 kg / m2)
- Type 2 diabetes mellitus with hemoglobin A1c level greater than 7.5%
Simon said that he expects many of the county providers to “vaccinate their own patients, understand their patients’ medical conditions” and that “the implementation is relatively simple”.
But he added during a briefing on Friday, “this will also require, I think, very clear definitions of who is eligible in this new phase”.
“It certainly means that there is even more urgency now to get a bigger supply of vaccine,” he said.