Scripps Health joined some health systems in San Diego County on Tuesday that began administering the COVID-19 vaccine to residents age 65 and older.
When California opened vaccines beyond the Phase 1A group – critical health professionals, nursing home workers and their patients – to include anyone aged 65 and over, San Diego County public health officials quickly admitted that they had not yet enough vaccines for expansion.
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But health systems that have extra doses of the vaccine available can go at their own pace, the county said. Scripps Health on Tuesday said they were one of them.
Scripps Health will begin administering the COVID-19 vaccine from Wednesday to patients aged 65 and over with an appointment. Dr. Ghazala Sharieff, Medical Director for Acute Care, said that within hours of the announcement, they already had 6,800 patients scheduled for consultations.
Patients will be notified via the MyScripps portal if they are eligible for the vaccine. Consultations will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis at selected clinics.
“Patients who are unable to guarantee an appointment with the vaccine during these clinics will be notified when additional appointments are available,” said the health group. “Scripps patients are asked not to call doctors’ offices because they cannot schedule these vaccines.”
The health group said the doses that will be used on patients 65 and older were the result of their efforts to vaccinate their health care workers – about 1,000 in all.
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No extra doses were provided by the federal or local government for the group over 65. Sharieff said that by scheduling so many appointments, they were “a little confident” that doses were coming in through their partnerships with the government.
Although Sharieff recognizes that 6,800 patients are a large number, there are still tens of thousands of patients in his system who are still anxiously awaiting the vaccine.
“I can’t get everyone right away, but it’s a start, so I just want to ask for a little patience,” said Sharieff. “The fact that we are launching this as soon as possible is exciting. As soon as we get more vaccine, we will open our clinics.”
UC San Diego Health is, until Tuesday, the only other health system capable of facilitating vaccination for the group of 65+. They expected to vaccinate around 500 patients a day at their facility “in addition to the nearly 10,000 UC San Diego Health employees who have already received their first doses in Phase 1A.”
The health system was prioritizing those with comorbidities and those at serious risk of COVID-19 infection, and contacting these patients directly.
Kaiser Permanente, on the other hand, was still vaccinating only healthcare professionals and the elderly and their patients due to the limited supply of vaccines.
“The recent expansion of the state’s eligibility to include individuals over 65 has challenged the entire healthcare system, including Kaiser Permanente,” a Kaiser spokesman said in a statement to NBC 7.
The hospital says they receive an average of 40,000 single doses of the vaccine per week for the entire state system, which is still sufficient to accommodate the Phase 1A group.
The San Diego County public health system was taking steps to vaccinate the region’s oldest population, but it was not yet able to offer vaccines to everyone aged 65 and over. On Monday, authorities announced that they would open their vaccination sites for people aged 75 and over, creating confusion at the large “Super Vaccination Center” in Petco Park.
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The authorities said the move was motivated by a slowdown in the vaccination sites for COVID-19, as well as efforts to vaccinate people at higher risk for coronavirus complications. San Diegans residents who fall into the qualified group and cannot receive an appointment through their health care provider can schedule appointments here.
San Diego County said that as more doses become available next month, vaccinations will expand to more than 600,000 people in the Phase 1B group.