Blue Shield of California will create an algorithm to determine where to allocate COVID-19 vaccines across the state with the goal of being able to deliver 3 million vaccines a week through March 1, according to a contract made public on Monday which gives the insurance giant a wide range of powers to oversee dose distribution in the state.
The company will try to dramatically increase the number of daily doses, but this target will depend largely on the supply sent to the state. California received just over 1 million doses of vaccine from the federal government in the past week.
Blue Shield, which has considerable influence on state policy, will immediately work to centralize the state’s COVID-19 vaccination program after a slow start due to a lack of available doses, complex regulations dictating which Californians to prioritize and reporting problems. Dice.
The contract says that the Blue Shield algorithm will prioritize the distribution of the vaccine with a “focus on equity” across the state and will be updated based on vaccine availability and COVID-19 rates. Few details about the algorithm were available on Monday.
Under the contract, Blue Shield also has ample latitude to select which healthcare providers and counties will continue to receive and administer doses in California as part of a vaccine network.
“We are changing a process along the way and my hope is that it will become easier, not bureaucratic and difficult for clinics in my community to serve their client populations,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, in an interview on Monday. “This is not the solution that LA County needs. LA County needs more vaccine and flexibility to distribute it more equitably. “
The state’s decision to put Blue Shield in charge removes important decisions about administering the vaccine from county control once California’s vaccination efforts began to take off. More than 6 million doses have been administered in the state, with California now averaging one million vaccines a week, Governor Gavin Newsom said in a tweet on Monday.
Kaiser Permanente, which provides health services to more than 9 million Californians, must sign a separate contract with the state to run a vaccination program for its members, overseeing two or more mass vaccination sites and helping to vaccinate “difficult ones” to reach and disproportionately impacted populations ”, according to a letter of intent released on January 29.
Both companies agreed that they will run the programs at or near cost and will “make no profit,” according to the letters of intent. The Blue Shield contract stipulates that the company cannot charge the state more than $ 15 million during the term of the contract for direct expenses.
Newsom, who faced criticism about the state’s slow implementation, said the deal with Blue Shield and Kaiser will ensure that vaccines are administered more quickly and equitably, improving the reliability of data that has so far been problematic. But some county officials say the process has been slowed by a lack of vaccines and noted that state data has failed to accurately show progress in vaccine administration.
“This is a supply problem, not a logistics problem,” said Buddy Mendes, a member of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors and vice president of California’s Urban Municipalities. “Give us the doses, that’s all we ask. Let’s put them in people’s arms. “
California’s urban counties wrote Newsom on February 3 to “raise serious concerns” about the Blue Shield deal, questioning why the state would bring the company so late in the process, after counties spent significant amounts of money to raise vaccine distribution. The Blue Shield agreement, the group wrote, could create confusion in the supply chain and disrupt the systems that local governments have created.
“Our main concern is to ensure that we have enough vaccines to cover consultations at our large-scale vaccination sites,” said the letter.
Ventura County officials have asked the state to opt out of the Blue Shield agreement, saying its own vaccination program has been limited only by the lack of available doses. Authorities said Ventura County could increase its ability to administer 8,000 doses a day if sufficient vaccine is provided. Allowing the Blue Shield to determine how many doses a county receives puts these efforts in limbo, the county wrote. The contract released on Monday does not allow counties to choose to leave.
“All of that capacity and capacity would be interrupted if vaccine supplies were diverted or reduced,” wrote Linda Parks, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, and Michael Powers, the county’s executive director.
The contract will create a vaccine network in three “geographic waves”, although the areas and schedules of that plan have not been included in the contract. Sources have provided The Times with an interim schedule confirmed by the California Department of Public Health in which Central Valley counties such as Fresno, Kern, San Joaquin and Stanislaus are in the first round that will begin on February 21.
Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura are among the counties of the second wave that begins on March 7. A week later, the counties of San Francisco, Contra Costa and Alameda are among those that would begin to participate in the vaccine supply chain.
Newsom authorized the deal with Blue Shield and Kaiser under an emergency contract that does not require legislative approval. The governor announced the deal at the end of last month, but the contract was not signed until Friday. The terms of the contract run through December 31.
The announcement that Blue Shield would play another key role in responding to the state’s pandemic sparked a new round of criticism about the company’s close relationship with Newsom.
The Oakland-based company, which serves about 4 million Californians, was chosen to improve coronavirus testing efforts in April after the disastrous start of the state, which included a shortage of test supplies, long waiting times for results and data failures.
The company’s chief executive, Paul Markovich, served as co-chairman of the governor’s test task force, while some company employees also worked on the initiative.
Blue Shield is a prominent player in California’s political campaigns, having spent more than $ 1 million in support of Newsom’s campaign for governor in 2018 and nearly $ 1.3 million in lobbying the state government in the last legislative session. In January 2020, Blue Shield donated $ 20 million to support Newsom’s program to combat homelessness.
Newsom said on February 3 that linking Blue Shield’s support and political influence to the company that won the vaccination contract is “absurd”.
“Everyone came together to see what is working and what is not, and we identified two partners in particular, two nonprofits, Kaiser and Blue Shield,” said Newsom. “… They have the kind of scale, they have the capacity, they have the allocation and distribution mentality that we were looking for.”
John Myers, head of the Times Sacramento branch, contributed to this report.