On Monday, Contra Costa County expanded its eligibility requirements for the COVID vaccine to all people aged 50 and over, regardless of health conditions. It is the second Bay Area county to do so after Solano County made the same change last week.
Contra Costa County, with an estimated population of 1.15 million, is now the state’s largest county to expand eligibility for those aged 50 to 64, just a week after eligibility is expanded statewide to residents with any of a list of serious health problems and disabilities. The move is effective immediately for Contra Costa County, thanks to the increased supply of vaccines.
“We are looking forward to the next few months, when we can end vaccine eligibility, when everyone and everyone is eligible,” said Diane Burgis, Chairman of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, in a statement. “More and more doses of vaccine are arriving in the county each week and we expect this trend to continue.”
On Monday, the state of Florida did the same thing to expand eligibility for the 50+ group, and more counties are likely to be on the way soon.
Late last week, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he expects California to be able to open the floodgates for everyone aged 16 and over to receive vaccines by the last week of April. He said that eligibility requirements could be dropped in late April because vaccine supply “will increase exponentially” by then.
President Joe Biden recently gave the May 1 date to eliminate eligibility levels.
In Solano County last week, health officer Dr. Bela Matyas cited “exceptionally good relationships with our hospital providers” for being able to expand eligibility before any other county in the Bay Area – and it helps the population of the county is one of the smallest in the region, with just under 448,000 inhabitants. As Matyas told ABC 7, “Last month, we were able to vaccinate tens of thousands of people each weekend, and with that, we were able to get through the levels much more quickly.”
But not everything is so optimistic after making the change. As KRON4 reports on Monday, Solano County is urgently calling for more state vaccination allocation, citing the fact that it has the third lowest allocation per 1,000 residents in any California county. County supervisor John M. Vasquez appealed to the governor’s office, also pointing to the fact that similarly sized counties with higher average incomes are receiving much more vaccine per capita.
Contra Costa County has a goal of administering 1 million vaccines by July 1, which would presumably cover almost everyone living or working in the county over the age of 16. As of Monday, the county was halfway to that goal with 515,000 first and second doses administered.
Across the country, 24% of the population received at least one dose of vaccine, and California is slightly ahead of the national average at 24.9%.
Ian Forsyth photo / Getty Images