As they prepared for nonprofit Blue Shield to take the lead in delivering vaccines in Sonoma County, health officials and local elected leaders were skeptical and concerned on Wednesday that this action could be another pandemic-led setback. by the state.
Recalling the COVID-19 vaccine disaster here last month at a Rohnert Park clinic operated by a state salesman, county officials acknowledged that they are concerned about the loss of control of the vaccination campaign and plan to maintain their network of vaccination clinics on site.
As of March 7, Blue Shield, which California health officials hired last month to administer the state’s vaccines, plans to use the network of clinics, health centers and other county partners for vaccines. But the insurer will obtain the weekly vaccine supply and decide how many doses to deliver to individual local vaccination sites. In accordance with its state contract, Blue Shield will also work to ensure that shots reach weapons in a racially just manner.
“We have a lot of parts in place, a Plan B in place to ensure that if there is a failure in their system, we will have backups, because we are doing it now,” said Ken Tasseff, vaccine coordinator for Sonoma County. “We are not taking apart anything until we are confident that (Blue Shield) is right.”
Blue Shield will also take control of the schedule and tracking of coronavirus vaccine doses in the county. This week, the health insurance giant took on that role in 10 other California counties, mainly in the Central Valley.
State officials said the action aims to get residents to be vaccinated more efficiently, increasing public transparency about where vaccine doses go and ensuring that vaccines reach the arms of people in communities disproportionately affected by COVID- 19.
County health officials and supervisors discussed the acquisition of the Blue Shield bullet during a news conference. They hope the move will increase weekly vaccine shipments to the county.
On Wednesday, Blue Shield declined to answer several questions from a Press Democrat reporter about the new vaccine distribution plan here. Blue Shield senior spokeswoman Erika Conner referred the questions to the California Department of Public Health.
Under a state contract that will not make a profit, Blue Shield is running a statewide vaccine distribution network that this week delivered about 1 million doses to residents. As California surpassed 50,000 coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, making it the first state to reach that sad milestone, the state is counting on Blue Shield to accelerate inoculations.
Dr Urmila Shende, the county’s vaccination leader, said members of the local public health team, who spent weeks solving problems with implanting the county’s inoculation, will do everything they can to ensure a smooth transition with the Blue Shield . Still, she warned that there could be problems.
“Throughout the vaccine implantation process, we realized that it is not easy,” said Shende. “So, we will work hard with the outsourced administrator (Blue Shield) to ensure that everything we implement will lead to the most successful implementation possible.”
Shende believes that the municipality will receive more doses of vaccine through the Blue Shield, as has already happened with some of the municipalities that participated in the first wave of centralized distribution.
The municipality still does not have enough doses to meet the residents’ demand. However, this week, the county expanded the vaccine’s eligibility to a group of more than 60,000 residents, including those 65 and older, in addition to education, daycare, food production, emergency services, grocery stores and restaurant workers.
The county started in December by inoculating residents and employees of nursing and healthcare clinics, moved to residents aged 75 and over, then to those aged 70 to 74, before finally aligning with what the state did in mid-January: start making appointments for seniors aged 65 and over.
Partnerships with local community health clinics and medical providers have led to a robust network of county vaccination clinics that could inoculate many more people than the 7,680 doses the county received this week, said Shende.
“If we had enough vaccine supplies, we would be able to do at least six times more, if not more,” she said. “So we have accumulated capacity at this point in the past five to six weeks.”
County health officer Dr. Sundari Mase said she was concerned that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to vaccine delivery across the state could create problems, especially in a state with 58 differently sized and diverse counties. diverse demographics.
Supervisor Chris Coursey expressed a lack of confidence in Blue Shield’s online vaccination registration system. The county has previous experience with the danger of the state’s online naming system provider, OptumServe, used for a Rohnert Park clinic last month. With the wrong age eligibility, the county had to cancel thousands of appointments immediately.
Lynda Hopkins, president of county supervisors, said she was not happy with the loss of local control over COVID-19 vaccinations, after all the work that was done to ensure that the county’s most vulnerable residents are vaccinated first.
“Let’s move from this constellation approach, where we work with trusted community partners who have deep relationships with the communities they serve, to a much more centralized command and control approach that is really designed to get this vaccine out as quickly as possible. ”Said Hopkins.
You can contact editor Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or [email protected]. On Twitter @pressreno.