Starting next week, Orange County will dedicate about a third of new shipments of coronavirus vaccines to those working in the education, daycare and food and agriculture sectors – a shift in gear to the next phase of immunization in county mass.
But short-term plans will be at the mercy of the recent extreme winter, which froze supply lines for an already logistically scarce vaccine.
A new range of workers, from teachers to grocery workers, will soon be asked to apply for vaccinations, according to a county memo released on Friday, February 19. No specific date has been specified for workers in these sectors to start being vaccinated.
Other traditional health chains and pharmacies that receive state funding, which have launched their own mass vaccination campaigns, would need to follow the same eligibility and allocation guidelines, the memo said.
“Othena is sending information about updated state guidelines to all registered users, explaining how the changes could affect their place in the digital waiting room,” said the memo, sent by the OC Health Care Agency director and county health officer. Dr. Clayton Chau for county council of supervisors.
Extending eligibility to new groups, commonly referred to as Phase 1b, will slow vaccinations for the elderly, Chau noted.
“This change in eligibility guidelines will mean a slower release of the vaccine for individuals who are currently eligible in Phase 1a (primarily healthcare professionals) and people aged 65 and over.”
It was also not immediately clear whether larger shipments of gunshots from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were available to support expansion into key new workers – the low dose availability restricted a national operation to immunize as many people as possible.
Orange County supervisor Doug Chaffee, who is part of the council’s vaccination task force, said the county has recently received about 35,000 to 40,000 doses a week.
It is a challenge to find the best and fairest way to share them, with so many people clamoring for doses, he said.
“We all want to get out of the COVID-19 threat,” said Chaffee, adding that as educators, grocery workers and others are added to the list of eligible, “I hope that we will continue to give priority to our toughest victim groups , who are our elderly – there are many of them who have not arrived yet ”.
However, the board memo noted that a new Johnson & Johnson branded one-shot vaccine must be authorized by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, February 26.
“We anticipate that this third vaccine platform option will increase vaccine supply and help us vaccinate more people more quickly,” said the memo.
With an increasing variety of large and small-scale public vaccination sites, the county team for weeks administered vaccinations to health professionals, first responders, people who live and work in qualified wards and anyone aged 65 or over who lives. or work in Orange County.
“Starting next week, 30% of the county’s vaccine allocation, including those to entities in various counties like UCI, Kaiser and Providence here in Orange County, will be assigned to our educators, daycare, food and agricultural sectors,” said Chau by e-mail to a reporter Thursday, February 18. “We are going to start vaccinating these people.”
However, vaccinators also had to take responsibility for the supply chain disruption caused by a cold snap that affected much of the country.
Because of delays and shortages of supplies, county leaders announced on Thursday that the Disneyland Super POD (distribution point) in Anaheim would close on Monday, while another large-scale location at Soka University in Aliso Viejo would manage only the second time-sensitive doses.
“As soon as vaccine supplies are replenished and Super POD sites are reopened, we will prioritize second-dose vaccinations for people who received their first dose through Othena and individuals who are eligible for Phase 1b,” said the memo.
About 207,000 doses were administered until Friday to people who registered with Othena, the county’s vaccine administration system – about 674,000 people registered through the app and website.
On February 9, Chau told the Board of Supervisors that he would postpone for two weeks to extend the county’s actions to educators, food service workers and other groups that the state had just qualified as an accumulation of elderly people who had not yet vaccinated was elaborated.
The memo on Friday provided more details about the closures caused by the recent winter storms across the country: Super PODs at Disneyland and Soka University and a new one planned for launch next week at the Anaheim Convention Center would manage the second doses of “approximately” only Tuesday, February 23 to March 2.
“Individuals eligible for Phase 1b will receive vaccines at Santa Ana College POD (a smaller facility that opened on Wednesday) and at schools coordinated by the Orange County Department of Education,” said the memo.
Andrea Zinder, president of a local chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, was pleased that the grocery store and other workers would soon be vaccinated.
“We are thrilled that the county is recognizing the essential food workers who keep our communities nourished while putting their lives and those of their families at risk,” said Zinder. “Accessibility to vaccines is also critical for our members in communities hard hit by this virus.”
The Orange County Department of Education has been working with the OC Health Care Agency to plan vaccinations for educators and school staff.
Considering the current supplies of vaccine doses that Orange County is receiving, the focus will continue to give doses to educators aged 65 and over and health professionals in schools, said Ian Hanigan, a spokesman for the county education department, on Friday.
“We are working to vaccinate them as soon as supplies arrive,” he said.
On Thursday, a distribution site was opened in Garden Grove specifically to inoculate those in education who were already eligible – those aged 65 and over and health workers – and gave about 200 vaccines that first day, Hanigan said. But with the disruption of shipments caused by storms, vaccinations were put on hold on Friday until more supplies were available.
People are being contacted to arrange a vaccination on the spot, but it is not possible to visit without warning, Hanigan said. The Department of Education is working through Othena to consult.
The Department of Education plans to open more education-specific distribution sites on campuses across the county, with about seven scheduled to open in mid-April.
And more vaccines will be needed.
“We are all agreed that we need to distribute the vaccine to educators who want it,” said Hanigan. “Demand is certainly high and we will work with them as soon as we can.”
Educators were frustrated by the delay and on Thursday asked for “immediate” access for school staff.
More than 25 teachers’ unions in Orange County, several board members and La Habra City Superintendent Joanne Culverhouse signed a letter saying that unless educators are given access to the vaccine, “the reopening of schools and full-day returns will be unnecessarily prolonged and schools currently in distance learning will continue to experience the yo-yo effect of opening and closing due to repeated quarantine of school staff. “
The pending expansion of eligibility “is a start,” said Denise Bradford, a board member of the California Teachers Association, based in the Saddleback Valley district. “I think it is difficult to increase with the low supply and now the weather is preventing the vaccine from arriving. But, on the other hand, I don’t understand why teachers were so far off the list to begin with. “
In addition to weather delays, Governor Gavin Newsom said on Friday that the state expects more consistent vaccine shipments and that its federal endowment will increase.
Newsom said the consistency gives the state the confidence to reserve a baseline of 75,000 first doses of the vaccine each week for teachers, school staff and daycare workers.
Editors Alicia Robinson and Heather McRea and the Associated Press contributed to this report.