About 702,000 of California’s vaccine doses have been delayed due to a winter storm that affected the Midwest, Governor Gavin Newsom said on Friday.
The missing doses represent more than half the supply of 1.2 million vaccines planned for this week. The delays mainly affect modern vaccines. Newsom said he does not know when the missed doses will arrive.
In the Bay Area, the result was canceled or delayed commitments.
Sutter Health said it was rescheduling some second dose consultations of Moderna due to delays in the delivery of the storm, and also “stopped scheduling new first dose appointments” due to supply restrictions.
A spokesman for Kaiser Permanente said that shipping delays affected part of the vaccine supply and that the company was reaching out to affected patients to reschedule appointments.
Contra Costa County health services said Friday afternoon that one of its partner pharmacies is having to cancel nearly 500 first-dose appointments. County spokesman Will Harper estimated that about 1,000 doses are still in transit, but he did not know how long it would take.
Marin County Health Department spokeswoman Laine Hendricks said the county is rescheduling up to 400 vaccine appointments this week, including second-dose visits, which require a Modern vaccine. Affected people will be contacted via email with rescheduling options next week, Hendricks said. Pfizer’s second dose vaccinations and most first dose appointments will continue.
Marin County delayed scheduling appointments from February 22 to 27 due to the uncertain situation. Delays also affect scheduling appointments through other providers, including MarinHealth and Safeway.
In Alameda County, 3,000 doses of Moderna are overdue. The county has enough vaccines to continue operating county sites this week and expects to receive supplies to do so next week.
Another 2,000 doses of Moderna never made it to Napa County this week.
San Mateo County expects to receive 14,200 doses of Moderna, but has not received information on when the shipment will arrive and will adjust plans for vaccination clinics as needed, spokesman Preston Merchant said.
In the municipality of Santa Clara, the vaccines from Moderna that were supposed to arrive this week were delayed, with no arrival schedule. Providers have enough vaccine to cover appointments scheduled until the beginning of next week, and more allocations are still scheduled for Tuesday.
The City College San Francisco website reopened for a second dose on Friday, and the mass vaccination site for the Moscone Center run by the Kaiser in San Francisco, closed due to limited supplies this week, will reopen on Thursday.
“The supply of vaccine arriving in San Francisco is limited, inconsistent and unpredictable, making vaccine planning difficult,” said the city’s COVID Command Center.
San Francisco resident Alex Lau received an automatic call from Sutter Health on Friday afternoon, stating that his 86-year-old father’s consultation for a second injection was being postponed for two weeks.
“It was disappointing, but we still live our lives more or less the same – we didn’t leave the house,” said Lau, who was grateful that it was at least his father’s second shot and not the first.
Nada Sanders, professor of supply chain management at Northeastern University, said that although accidents can happen, supply chains must have contingencies built in to cope with bad weather, as it is known in advance.
“This is so predictable and extremely frustrating,” said Sanders, adding, “Everything we have is resting on it, and we are screwing it up.”
As soon as the winter storm delays pass, an increase in the vaccine is expected. Newsom said the state is predicting “modest increases every week” in the federal government’s distribution of vaccines.
Chronicle staff writer Michael Williams contributed to this report.
Mallory Moench is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @mallorymoench