The vaccine shortage has forced Kaiser Permanente to cancel more than 5,000 consultations in Santa Clara County for seniors who had been scheduled to receive the COVID-19 vaccines.
In what Kaiser spokesman Marc Brown called “a very unfortunate development”, the hospital did not receive the vaccines it was expecting when people made appointments for late January and early February.
Brown said the team had scheduled people for the vaccine based on previous deliveries and state and county “guidance”.
“We understand the frustration that this causes and we continue to do everything we can to increase the supply of vaccines, working in partnership with the municipal, state and federal governments,” Brown said in an email in response to questions from The Times.
When additional vaccines are obtained, Kaiser will reschedule appointments, prioritizing those 75 and older, Brown said.
Kaiser will also try to reschedule those aged 65 to 74, “but we need a significant increase in vaccine supply to schedule this population,” he said.
In the meantime, Brown said, people can get vaccines from state and local providers.
Kaiser is hardly the only vaccine supplier who has forced to cancel appointments because of doses that did not arrive as expected. Last week, Ralphs pharmacies in Los Angeles County had to cancel appointments after the county “retrieved” 10,000 doses from the chain it wanted to use in mass vaccination sites, The Times reported.
For Kaiser, the cancellations included about 750 appointments scheduled from January 29 to 31 for people aged 75 and over. Another 4,500 appointments scheduled for January 29 to February 5 for people aged 65 to 74 were also canceled.
In an email to members over the weekend, Kaiser CEO Greg A. Adams said the hospital has the capacity to deliver 200,000 vaccines a week in California, but does not have the doses. He predicted that it would take several months before the vaccine supply in the United States approached what was necessary.
Kaiser has more than 9.3 million members in California, but has received only about 300,000 doses so far across the state to vaccinate healthcare professionals and patients, he said.
Because of the limited supply, Kaiser is now limiting vaccines to healthcare professionals, residents of long-term care institutions and people aged 75 and older, said Adams.
Kaiser predicts an increase in supply in the coming weeks and is prepared to open additional sites and set up mobile clinics to administer doses, he said. Kaiser is also working with state and local governments and other health care providers, he said, to open high-volume sites across the state.
One in 1,000 Californians has died of COVID-19. More than half – at least 22,500 Californians – have died since November 1.
Data collected by The Times show that about 3.5 million Californians, about 7.2% of the population, received a dose of the vaccine until Monday.