Any Orange County resident age 65 or older can now be vaccinated against coronavirus, county health officials said on Tuesday, January 12.
People aged 75 and over – as well as city and county fire officials – have recently received a preference from the OC Health Agency as they begin the second phase of the vaccination campaign, Phase 1B.
But after reviewing some alarming statistics about who is hospitalized and in intensive care because of COVID-19, the county’s vaccination task force on Sunday recommended expanding vaccination to people 65 and older, the health official said. Dr. Clayton Chau County to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
Data from about 13 hospitals, which provide most of the care for COVID-19 patients in the county, showed that most people who are hospitalized, as well as most people who require intensive care and need a ventilator, have 61 or older, Chau said.
“My goal is to ensure that we vaccinate the most vulnerable so that we can prevent them from going to the hospital, prevent them from entering the ICU and, most importantly, prevent them from dying,” said Chau.
For now, he is advising people to contact their doctor or health care provider to ask how to get vaccinated. The county is also asking residents to plan to use a new app it helped develop, called Othena, but the app still doesn’t allow people to schedule vaccination appointments.
This week, the county is opening a large-scale vaccination site in Disneyland, which is expected to be the first of five such operations.
Like health professionals in Phase 1A, anyone who is now in the eligible age group will need an appointment initiated by organizations that serve older adults and have a partnership with the county.
“There will also be communications targeting these communities of older adults,” says the vaccine distribution website for the Health Care Agency. Vaccines will be administered in mass vaccination sites and smaller sites that will be implanted closer to where the elderly live.
Other cohorts in Phase 1B, including teachers and daycare workers and food and agriculture workers, have not yet been invited to be vaccinated.
It was unclear on Tuesday whether distribution to older residents had already started, as health workers in Phase 1A continued to queue at invite-only vaccination sites in Anaheim, Irvine and Huntington Beach, where vaccines started this week last.
The announcement came amid increasing pressure on health departments across the country to put more needles in more weapons.
This is a developing story.