Orange County will wait at least two more weeks before offering COVID-19 vaccines to educators, food workers and other newly qualified under state guidelines, said county health officer, Dr. Clayton Chau, on Tuesday. February 9.
The additional time will help the county overcome the waiting list for people aged 65 and over who have not yet been vaccinated, Chau told the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
So far, some 100,000 elderly people in Orange County, in addition to the majority of county health workers who wanted injections, have been vaccinated, Chau said – but these two groups together number more than 700,000 people, and vaccine supplies remain limited .
Chau said that with the county receiving only about 37,000 doses a week from the state, inviting more people to compete for them would only lead to more frustration.
“At best, we vaccinated a quarter of them (the elderly) – I can’t open the door for more of them to come when we still have the same number of vaccines,” he said.
After starting vaccinations by healthcare professionals in mid-December, Orange County was one of the first to offer injections to anyone 65 and older starting about a month ago.
Chau followed the recommendation of the county’s vaccination task force and opened appointments for the elderly after seeing statistics from about a dozen hospitals that showed that about three-quarters of people hospitalized with serious complications or dying from COVID-19 were in the range older age group.
The county’s vaccination task force, as well as an ad hoc committee of supervisors, agreed with the decision to remain focused for the next two weeks on people aged 65 and over, especially the most vulnerable and in parts of the county that have active hotspots of the virus, Chau said.
Across the state, Orange County is second, behind Los Angeles County, with the highest percentage of residents aged 65 and over, he said. Neighboring Long Beach was able to vaccinate its health workers and a smaller elderly population and has now opened appointments for teachers, Chau said.
The Orange County Health Agency gets about 20% of the doses assigned to the county (most go to major medical service providers that serve multiple counties and pharmacy chains), so Chau has to rely on third parties and the state for information on how the rest of the vaccines are used.
Supervisor Lisa Bartlett said the state’s vaccine database is full of incomplete or inaccurate information, including postal codes missing from many residents who have been vaccinated, which is making it more difficult for county health officials to find out where. target outreach and establish clinics.
“The state’s database is so erroneous that it is affecting our second dose levels,” she said, adding that Los Angeles County had to stop further consultations this week to track follow-up vaccines.
“Until we can get accurate information from the CEP, we won’t really know what’s going on in underserved areas,” she added.
Chau told supervisors that in addition to the super sites at Disneyland and Soka University and a mobile weekend POD (distribution point), the county health agency is working with community clinics and non-profit organizations to bring vaccines to people in neighborhoods with high infection rates or who may have trouble reaching the two major sites.
Authorities are planning vaccination sites in Santa Ana and Anaheim, which include neighborhoods with some of the highest infection rates in the county, and additional pods may be arriving at Santa Ana College and Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove, Chau said.
The county’s Othena platform for people to register for vaccines and make appointments last week added support in Spanish and on Tuesday added Vietnamese and is “acting quickly” to add Korean and Chinese, Chau said.
The county hotline, 714-834-2000, can help seniors who don’t understand technology with the process.
“We had a Vietnamese and Spanish speaking team on the hotline,” said Chau, adding that county officials recognize that they may not meet demand and are in the process of hiring a call center and training their staff to increase the number of employees. hotline people can serve and in what languages.
Chau urged residents to be patient while the county faces the challenges of vaccinating some 3.1 million people with a limited supply, and he repeated the request on Tuesday, although he said he hopes that for many the wait will end sooner or later. later.
A federal Food and Drug Administration panel is due to meet on February 26 to consider allowing the use of Johnson & Johnson’s new vaccine, which requires only one injection and would help alleviate the supply problem.
“If the FDA authorizes it, probably on the following Monday or Tuesday (March 1 or 2), we should have our first shipment of Johnson & Johnson in Orange County,” said Chau.
“I wait a month from now, when we have vaccines in abundance … to offer to any of our citizens who want the vaccine.”