In 
Spencer Custodio |
Questions and concerns continue to revolve around exactly how the Orange County Health Agency is going to implement the distribution of coronavirus vaccines in addition to hospital medical staff.
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OC is not the only county facing vaccine concerns.
The rest of California, too.
Governor Gavin Newsom said efforts across the state “are not good enough” at a news conference on Monday.
“It went very slowly,” said Newsom. “We all want to see 100% of what is received immediately administered in people’s arms.”
Newsom said that only about a third of the 1.3 million vaccines were administered.
On Tuesday, state public health officials warned the Orange County Health Care Agency to increase the distribution of the coronavirus vaccine after a slow start.
Authorities have also warned other counties.
Dr. Jason Cord, president of the Orange County Medical Association, said it is difficult to inoculate on a large scale with scarce resources and declining medical staff due to the tsunami of virus patients that OC hospitals are facing.
“We are all overwhelmed with the day-to-day work of caring for patients who are sick, which limits the ability to administer vaccines,” said Cord. “We are having to pull nurses and clinical staff to do this.”
Cord is part of the OC vaccine task force, along with Orange County health officer Dr. Clayton Chau.
“You have to imagine that vaccine clinics are also going to receive employees – don’t get me wrong, we’re still doing that,” he said.
He said that state public health officials require certain levels of personnel, similar to hospital emergency plans that must be presented to the state.
“There is not just an increase in the need for staff,” said Cord. “There are also requirements for vaccine staff.”
Several private care doctors and emergency care physicians have contacted the Voice of OC, expressing their concern about when they will receive the vaccine.
“I am directly involved, now, in working to ensure that our doctors not affiliated with the hospital and its staff are vaccinated as well,” said Cord.
At a news conference last month, Chau said there are not enough vaccines for all OC medical staff.
“As you can imagine, it is not enough. So we have to get down the line, ”he said.
There are several guidelines from health agencies at the federal and state levels, along with national medical organizations – which may be adding to the confusion in the distribution of the vaccine.
The California Department of Public Health guidelines put hospital staff and paramedics at the first level of the first phase, while primary care and emergency physicians are at the second level of the first phase.
The OC Health Care Agency is using vaccine guidelines from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, according to the agency website.
The CDC and the National Institutes of Health instructed the National Academies to produce the guidelines.
The group suggested a four-phase approach to vaccine distribution, with healthcare professionals at the top of the list – similar to the state’s tiering system.
“Included in Phase 1a would be ‘frontline’ health workers – health professionals who are involved in direct patient care, as well as those working in transportation, environmental services or other health facility services – who are at risk of exposure to body fluids or aerosols, ”says guidelines.
Newsom said the state legislature should consider $ 300 million in the next budget to help with vaccine distribution, storage and other logistical issues – along with a public outreach campaign.
“We are already working these past few days to increase distribution sites and, most importantly, to accelerate efforts on who can administer vaccines,” said Newsom, adding that authorities are examining National Guard medical units, dentists and other clinics for help with vaccine distribution.
Meanwhile, ambulance patients face longer waiting times before being discharged from Orange County hospitals as coronavirus patients continue to flood the local hospital system.
A Monday situation report from OC Emergency Medical Services shows that 16 emergency rooms had waiting times in excess of 30 minutes and 10 emergency rooms had waiting times of more than an hour.
For comparison, 14 emergency rooms had a waiting time of more than 30 minutes and eight had more than an hour waiting last Thursday.
And the OC broke a new record on Tuesday, when it exceeded 2,200 hospitalized.
According to data from state hospitals, 2,236 people were hospitalized, including 504 in intensive care units – an increase of 163% over the previous month.
The overall positivity of Orange County tests continues to hover around 16%, with a rate of 15.8% on Tuesday, according to state data.
The poorest CO residents are again hit with almost one in four people tested positive.
In an email on Tuesday, the OC’s Director of Emergency Medical Services, Dr. Carl Schultz, said that six hospitals have requested additional support from Health Agency staff.
“OC hospitals are requesting personnel, but not specifically from the National Guard. After exhausting all of their personnel resources, they request personnel from the OC Health Care Agency (HCA) disaster coordination center, the Agency Operations Center (AOC). They fill out various documents that describe your needs and other issues. AOC attempts to respond to requests from county assets. If not, we forward the request to the State, ”said Schultz.
Schultz said that if state aid is not available, state authorities coordinate with federal authorities to bring aid to hospitals.
“If this happens, the federal management group can request the sending of the National Guard. There is currently no order to send funds from the National Guard to OC hospitals. There are nurses, respiratory therapists and other medical service providers who have been deployed in hospitals at other agencies and recruitment companies, ”he said.
The county health agency reported 1,376 new cases today – significantly below the nearly 9,000 reported on Monday.
Monday’s countdown went back at least two days due to the maintenance of state servers.
The OC is now averaging about 2,800 new cases a day last week.
State public health officials estimate that about 12% of all infected people end up hospitalized in three weeks.
It is a difficult virus to be fought by the medical community because some people have no symptoms, but they can still spread it. Others experience mild symptoms, such as fatigue and low-grade fever.
Others end up in the ICU for days and weeks before escaping, while others die from the virus.
The virus has killed 1,926 people out of 171,955 confirmed cases in OC, according to the county Health Agency.
The virus has killed more than three times as many people as the flu on an annual average.
For contextual purposes, Orange County has averaged about 20,000 deaths per year since 2016, including 543 annual flu deaths, according to state health data.
According to state mortality statistics, cancer kills more than 4,600 people, heart disease kills more than 2,800, more than 1,400 die from Alzheimer’s disease and strokes kill more than 1,300 people.
Orange County has already surpassed its annual average of 20,000 deaths, with 21,110 dead by November, according to the latest state data available.
In a telephone interview on Tuesday, UC Irvine epidemiologist and public health professor Andrew Noymer said that January appears to be the worst month of the pandemic.
“The fact is that January 2021 will be in the annals of history as a crisis in hospitals, you can take that to the bank,” he said. “We are about to suffer, basically. I don’t know how else to say. I’m not optimistic about the next six weeks. ”
Here is the latest information on virus numbers in Orange County from county data:
Infections | Hospitalizations and deaths | City to city data | Demography
Spencer Custodio is a reporter on the Voice of OC team. You can reach it at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerCustodio