Vaccinations for Tier 1B to begin next week in Lake County

LAKE COUNTY >> Lake County will be able to move onto vaccinations for the next tier next week, including people over 75 years old and educators, amidst a surge in COVID-19 cases following the holidays.

Dr. Gary Pace, the county’s public health officer, said residents in that tier, 1B, would be eligible to receive a vaccine starting Tuesday. This comes as Pace said the county would have offered vaccinations to everyone in the first tier, workers, emergency responders and residents and staff of long-term care facilities, by the end of the week.

However, the public health department, like many others, is still in the dark about how many vaccines it can expect to have to distribute in the future.

Pace said at the current rate, all of the people in the county who wanted to be vaccinated wouldn’t be able to until the end of 2022. He said it was expected that around 25,000-30,000 people in Lake County would want a vaccine, while

the county was only getting 300-400 doses a week through the health department.

“Clearly that’s not adequate … The state gets supplies from the manufacturers and through the federal government,” Pace said. “There seems to be some log jams there that we’re suspecting is going to be changed in a couple weeks, probably after the inauguration. I don’t really know.”

This comes as the coronavirus positivity rate in California has increased in the last 14 days and testing has decreased in that time frame. Sarah Marikos, an epidemiologist for Lake County, said projections showed that the state would continue to experience a surge over the next month and likely longer.

“We believe this is really the result of sort of the cumulative holidays that we had in the last couple weeks,” Marikos said.

Lake County has seen 2,256 cases and 27 deaths over the course of the pandemic. There are 251 active cases and 12 people currently hospitalized, with local ICU units at or near capacity. There have been two deaths in the past seven days. Pace said hospitals that Lake County usually sends patients out to are filling up.

“The next couple weeks is going to be very, very telling,” he said. “I encourage people to stay home and to do what they can to really avoid contact with folks outside your household as much as possible because this is the moment. The next couple weeks is where we can turn it around by not getting sick or it can continue to perpetuate and get worse and worse.”

Pace said one of the nursing homes in the county was fully vaccinated and the other two would be by the week’s end, with facilities partnering with pharmacies for distribution.

A stand-up vaccination clinic for people in Tier 1B in Lake County will begin operation Tuesday and will be open Mondays through Saturdays three days a week in Lakeport and three days a week in Clearlake.

Pace said appointments for educators would be arranged by their school district. Pace said he was meeting with the Department of Social Services and senior centers to figure out how to best coordinate appointments for people over 75 years old. Some medical providers in the community will also be able to distribute the vaccine, starting next week.

He said the department was sharing its staffing needs and the state would likely be sending in additional workers to help with the vaccines’ rollout. He said volunteers were also needed and those interested should contact the local health department.

For more information on the local coronavirus outbreak, go to health.co.lake. ca.us/Coronavirus.htm.

“The next couple weeks is going to be very, very telling. I encourage people to stay home and to do what they can to really avoid contact with folks outside your household as much as possible because this is the moment. The next couple weeks is where we can turn it around by not getting sick or it can continue to perpetuate and get worse and worse.”

— Dr. Gary Pace, Lake County’s public health officer