Bay area governments and health care providers are opening new places to administer vaccines and increasing the number of injections administered each day, while California tries to reach much of the rest of the country by distributing doses amid the worst outbreak of the pandemic.
Local officials said on Friday that the vaccine’s release is limited by limited supply and a deluge in demand from residents over the age of 65 considered eligible by the state for immunizations this week, with some counties also citing the need for staff , facilities and time to increase operations. California, which has administered 1.2 million of the nearly 3 million vaccines it has received so far, has had one of the slowest implementations in any state.
“We need to increase the pace, distribution and administration of these vaccines,” said Governor Gavin Newsom during the opening of a mass vaccination post at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Friday. “The reality is that we need to get these vaccines out of the freezer and put them in people’s arms.”
The need for vaccination gained urgency on Friday, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that a variant of the highly transmissible virus that spread rapidly across the UK could account for half of the cases in the U.S. by March. The mutations do not make the virus more deadly, the report said, but since the transmission rate is higher, this will lead to more cases and deaths in general compared to the current variant.
The news came when the global pandemic death toll reached 2 million on Friday. Across California, the percentage of positive tests has declined, Newsom said, as have new cases and hospitalizations. In the bay area, the peak of deaths in the post-holiday increase appears to have passed the peak, although the capacity for intensive care remains low.
As local and state governments struggle to cope with the increase and vaccinate the vulnerable, President-elect Joe Biden announced on Friday that he would use the Defense Production Act to help meet his goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans in their early years. 100 days.
Santa Clara County attorney James Williams said on Friday that the recent political chaos with the outgoing government has made the already frustrating vaccine deployment even worse. On Friday, the Washington Post reported that a promised federal supply of vaccines was indeed empty. Newsom said he did not anticipate that the failure would impair the ability of Californians to obtain their second dose on a two-dose regimen, but said that this was based on guarantees from the federal government, and “We are now aware of the importance of verifying this information. “
Carrie Owen Plietz, president of Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California region, said at a news conference with San Francisco officials on Friday that as soon as more vaccines arrive, the health care system will be trying to get people to have access to they.
“As soon as we receive the vaccines, we will be actively working to place them in the arms of individuals,” she said.
San Francisco plans to open three mass vaccination sites with the aim of administering at least 10,000 or more doses of vaccine per day, announced London Mayor of race and health, Dr. Grant Colfax, on Friday, but the city first need enough supply.
“Vaccine doses remain limited. We are ready for more doses, we need more doses, we are asking for more doses ”, said Breed. “We are not sitting on any vaccine. Everyone is walking out the door. “
In Alameda County, authorities could convert the Oakland Coliseum into a site for mass vaccination against coronavirus as early as February. The Colosseum has already been used as a coronavirus test facility, a polling place and a distribution point for the flu vaccine.
In Contra Costa County, public and private health systems have distributed about 36,000 of the nearly 72,000 doses so far, with an additional 33,000 doses on the way, officials said at a news conference on Friday. Dr. Ori Tzvieli, county chief of operations for the COVID-19 response, said that expanding vaccine operations is much more complex than testing.
The county has opened 20 vaccination sites and plans to add more in Antioch and Richmond next week.
“We are at the start of the largest public health immunization campaign in history,” said county supervisor Diane Burgis at a vaccination site in Pleasant Hill on Friday. “We ask everyone to be patient. It will be your turn and when it is your turn, we ask that you get vaccinated. “
The county is partnering with paramedics to potentially administer vaccines and considering opening a mass vaccination site, but it still doesn’t have enough doses for that, said Tzvieli.
The limited supply is not enough to meet current demand, as California has opened its lawsuit for residents over the age of 65 to receive vaccines on Wednesday. The great interest in making appointments on Thursday caused the Sutter Health website to collapse and left some people waiting for hours with Kaiser Permanente. The Contra Costa County Health Services website is receiving about 1,000 consultation requests per hour, said health director Anna Roth.
On Thursday, Kaiser received four times the normal call volume in just one call center, Kaiser’s Plietz said on Friday. The system was still reporting “extremely high” call volume and waiting times on Friday, a spokesman said. By the end of next week, Kaiser hopes to have online self-service tools that will allow eligible individuals to schedule an appointment if a vaccine supply is available.
A Sutter spokeswoman said on Friday that the site was back online, but that the waiting time would still be long. The health system is prioritizing administering vaccines to health professionals and people over 75 years of age.
Contra Costa County Health Services also prioritizes people over 75, while accepting information and scheduling further appointments for people over 65, said Tzvieli. The county expects to vaccinate everyone in the eligible age group before the end of February.
In Marin County, more than a third of the population is at the current level of eligibility for vaccination, including those over 65. Dr. Matt Willis, the county’s public health officer, said demand would exceed supply for a few weeks and asked the healthier seniors to be patient.
In Sonoma County, Dr. Sundari Mase, the county’s provisional health officer, said at a news conference on Friday that “implantation will depend on vaccine supplies.” She expects teachers to be vaccinated in the first week of February and said the county is working with its human resources, police and EMS department to vaccinate other essential workers on schedule.
“If we have a continuous supply of vaccines, I don’t think it will undermine the current plan,” she said.
On Thursday, local hospitals treated 2,106 patients with coronavirus, the lowest number in 10 days. It is a positive point, but Bay Area leaders said they are still very concerned about the current availability of intensive care. The number of deaths recorded on Friday was the highest since the start of the pandemic – with 688 deaths attributed to the coronavirus in the early evening – and availability of ICUs in the Bay Area, which includes the nine counties, as well as the counties of Santa Cruz and Monterey, remained worryingly low, at 3.4%.
“This is no time to let your guard down,” Santa Clara County supervisor Otto Lee said at a news conference on Friday. “Just once, a family eating a good dinner with their masks down, to spread this. Please calm down a little more, a few more months. “
Chronicle team writers Trisha Thadani, Erin Allday, Catherine Ho, Aidin Vaziri and the Associated Press contributed to the report.
Mallory Moench is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @mallorymoench