Older adults may be included in the next group of Californians to receive coronavirus vaccines, under a new proposal that state vaccination counselors considered on Wednesday.
People aged 75 and over and people aged 65 to 74 with health problems are now being considered for inclusion in the approximately 15 million Californians who could be next in line to be vaccinated after health workers and residents of health care institutions. long stay.
Previously, the state’s vaccine advisory committees considered only workers essential to this next group, such as teachers, grocery workers and firefighters. If the state includes older adults, this will reflect recommendations made last weekend by an advisory committee to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The proposal has not yet been approved by the vaccine committees that make recommendations to the state on how to prioritize vaccinations. One of the committees, the Guidelines Writing Working Group, is scheduled to meet on December 30 to discuss the issue and send its recommendations to the state. The state hopes to finalize who is in the next group within a week or more, California Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly said on Tuesday.
Older adults are at a much greater risk of dying or becoming seriously ill from COVID-19 than younger ones. The death rate for people aged 65 to 74 is 90 times higher than for people aged 18 to 29, according to data from the CDC. It is 220 times higher for people aged 75 to 84 and 630 times higher for people aged 85 or older, compared to people aged 18 to 29 years.
California is currently vaccinating about 2.4 million people in the first priority group, or Phase 1a, who are health care workers and residents and employees in long-term care facilities. The next group, Phase 1b – the group likely to include essential and potentially elderly workers – is likely to be vaccinated in January and February, according to estimates by federal health officials.
Phase 1b can be divided into two layers. The first could include 1.4 million educators and daycare centers, including teachers, 1.1 million emergency service workers, 3.4 million food and agriculture workers, including grocery workers and 2.6 million people with 75 years or more. The second level may include half a million critical manufacturing workers, 2.1 million facility and service workers, 1.1 million transport and logistics workers, 300,000 people incarcerated or homeless and 2.5 million people aged 65 and 74 years.
“We don’t have enough vaccines, so we will have to make difficult choices until we do,” Dr. Oliver Brooks, co-chair of the Writing Guidelines Working Group.
California has vaccinated more than 120,000 people so far, said state health officer, Dr. Erica Pan, on Wednesday.
Catherine Ho is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @Cat_Ho