Orange County this week will begin reserving doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for education, daycare, food and agriculture workers, officials said.
The municipality plans to allocate 30% of its vaccine allocation to workers in these sectors, as well as to emergency services. The remaining 70% will go to residents 65 and older, said Jessica Good, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Health Agency, on Sunday by email.
County officials have instructed vaccine providers to similarly split allocations they receive directly, according to a presentation made Saturday to the county vaccine task force.
Orange County residents age 65 and older and the first respondents working in high-risk communities can be vaccinated since mid-January.
The county estimates that it has 450,000 elderly residents and almost 477,000 who work in education, daycare, food and agriculture or emergency services. The county has not yet received its vaccine distribution for this week.
To inoculate more people, the county must replenish its vaccine stock, the health department said on Friday in an update. Distributions have been inadequate and erratic, as has been the case throughout the United States, and the severe winter in other parts of the country further delayed shipments of the Modern vaccine to California, forcing the temporary closure of several distribution sites in California. large scale over the weekend.
In Orange County, the Disneyland distribution site is closed until Monday. The county may have to postpone the opening of a new location at the Anaheim Convention Center, which was scheduled for Wednesday due to shipping delays, the health department said.
A Soka University of America website that primarily administers the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine remained open for second doses, but one at Santa Ana College temporarily closed on Saturday, with officials saying the reopening would depend on receiving more Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
In Los Angeles, all six vaccination sites administered by the city, including Dodger Stadium, will resume operations on Tuesday, according to the mayor’s office.
California announced in December that workers in education, daycare, food and agriculture and emergency services would be eligible to receive the vaccine during Phase 1B of the state’s distribution plan and subsequently expanded this group to include those aged 65 and over. But exactly how it happened varies by county.
Many counties started vaccinating the elderly and some police and emergency workers last month; other emergency service workers, such as paramedical firefighters and emergency medical technicians, received doses earlier because they are also health workers, who became eligible in Phase 1A of the state plan.
Education, daycare, food and agriculture workers will be able to receive vaccines in San Francisco from February 26 and in Los Angeles from March 1, although public health officials in both counties have warned that the pace will be slow. reduced due to limited supply. Long Beach, which has its own health department and receives its own vaccine supply, started vaccinating some food workers and educators last month.
Santa Barbara County has not yet set a date for education, daycare and food and agriculture workers to be vaccinated, but hopes to find out more this week, according to Jackie Ruiz, public information officer for the county health department.
Workers in these sectors are eligible to receive vaccines in Riverside County since the state moved to Phase 1B several weeks ago, said Brooke Federico, public information officer. Although county public health clinics have to limit vaccinations to people 65 and older due to supply restrictions, essential workers have been able to make appointments with private providers, said Federico.
In San Bernardino County, teachers and school support staff who have conducted or supported classroom teaching or plan to do so before the end of the current school year have been eligible for vaccination since February 1, said David Wert, public information Cop. The county has not been able to offer vaccines to all teachers and school staff, or to food and agriculture workers, due to limited supply, but hopes to expand eligibility soon, he said.