Vaccine will arrive this week

The county will receive 975 vials this week

Hope has arrived.

That was the message from Gov. Gavin Newsom, surely echoed by many across the state and the nation, as a FedEx cargo jet carrying the first dose soft he COVID- 19 vaccine touched down Sunday evening at Los Angeles International Airport. This week, select health care workers will become the first Californians to be inoculated from the new coronavirus with those very vials.

California received 327,000 dose soft he Pfizer vaccine in its initial shipment, which are now being distributed to hospitals and health departments throughout the state. By the end of the year, it expects another 300,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and another 627,000 from Modern a, whose vaccine is still awaiting final approval in the U.S. but has been shown to

be similarly effective to Pfizer’s.

Yolo County expects 975 doses of the vaccine to arrive later this week with another 1,500 coming from Moderna closer to Christmas, according to the county’s vaccine webpage.

Newsom and other leaders, as well as health experts, have cautioned that it will take months before the vaccine is available to much of the general population. Health care workers and workers at long- term care facilities will be prioritized in this first round.

In Yolo County, long- term care facilities have been an area of concern. Earlier this month, the National Guard and the California Emergency Medical Services Authority were called in to assist with staffing at Cottonwood Rehab Facility during an outbreak there.

The first phase of vaccinations will include three stages. Phase 1A focuses on those who work directly that are at risk directly because of their place of work, while 1B will include essential workers, such as grocery store employees and agriculture workers. The last part of the first phase, Phase 1C, involves citizens who are high- risk for the virus or over the age of 65, according to the county’s webpage.

State officials said they hope to vaccinate 2.16 million people by the end of the year. However, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines each requires a second dose, and the initial batch doesn’t cover all of the 2.4 million health care workers in the state.

On Sunday, the scientific safety working group created by the governors of California, Nevada, Washington and Oregon signed off on the safety and efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine, clearing the final hurdle for inoculations to begin in the western U. S.

“As California continues to fight the surge, we know hope is on the way with a vaccine,” Newsom said in a statement. “With shipments of the vaccine soon on their way to California, we are working hand- in- hand with local public health officials to get the vaccine out to the first phase of recipients.”

The vaccine is coming during an explosion of COVID19 cases throughout the state, including in Yolo County. The county has seen a total of 6,117 and 89 deaths as of Sunday. There are 30 residents in hospital in the county and 12 in the ICU.

In Woodland, 2,471 people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus and 53 people have died.