COVID-19 VACCINE CLEARS HURDLE IN CALIF.

Review team representing Western states gives assent as doses start shipping out

The COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech cleared another hurdle in California on Sunday when a working group of scientists and experts endorsed its safety.

The group, representing California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, reviewed the vaccine separately from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which on Friday issued emergency use authorization. The group made its recommendation to the governors of the four states Sunday morning, officials said in a news release.

The move paved the way for vaccines to be distributed across California. Officials expect the first shipments to arrive as soon as today, with more to follow this month and in January.

“With shipments of the vaccine soon on their way to California,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement,

“we are working hand-inhand with local public health officials to get the vaccine out to the first phase of recipients.”

California’s first allocation of about 327,000 doses is being sent mostly to acutecare hospitals to be administered to health care workers, although some counties have said they will also send a portion to skilled nursing facilities. The vaccine isn’t expected to be available to everyone who wants one until the spring.

As trucks carrying the vaccine departed Pfizer’s manufacturing plant in Kalamazoo, Mich., on Sunday, advocates sought to dispel skepticism about a drug that could save lives.

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said the level of scrutiny to which the vaccine had been subjected was unprecedented and that the data detailing its safety and efficacy were publicly available.

“This is a very powerful outcome of this incredibly intense yearlong experience to develop this,” Collins said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And I think all reasonable people, if they had the chance to sort of put the noise aside and disregard all those terrible conspiracy theories, would look at this and say, ‘I want this for my family; I want it for myself.’”

Collins acknowledged that the sense the vaccine development was rushed, plus the “terrible polarization” in the country, created a sense of skepticism. But, he said, it was unfounded.

Collins also cautioned that just because a vaccine is being rolled out, other steps in health safety should not be discarded.

“Masks are still going to be part of our life,” he said. “We need to recognize that and not step away or start to drop our guard.”

Desi Kotis, UC San Francisco Health’s chief pharmacy executive, echoed that sentiment.

“There’s still going to be time where we have to abide by the rules and mask and distance and keep our hands clean and not party like it’s 1999 and go to a big rave tomorrow night because I got my vaccine,” said Kotis, who is leading the vaccine rollout there.

“We’re still going to have to be patient, and it’s going to take time. But the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t a train coming back at us anymore. It’s a bright beacon of hope.”

The upbeat vaccine news came as conditions continued to deteriorate at California’s hospitals.

There were 13,047 COVID-19 patients hospitalized Saturday, according to data released by the state on Sunday. That’s a nearly sixfold increase from two months ago, when there were 2,226 patients.

COVID-19 patients in San Diego County hospitals reached 1,024 on Saturday — up 29 patients from Friday. It is the first time that local COVID hospitalizations have topped 1,000 since this latest surge in cases began just after Halloween.

Of those hospitalized, 261 COVID patients are in intensive care, up one patient from Friday.

Currently, 25 percent of the county’s inventory of 6,021 hospital beds are available. Some of those beds are being reserved for the possibility of a further surge in hospitalizations as positive test results remain high in the county.

On Saturday, 2,416 positive tests were reported — the fifth consecutive day the number exceeded 2,000.

Local health officials reported that 18 percent of all ICU beds locally were available on Saturday, or 127 open beds.

For the Southern California region, however, ICU bed availability dipped to just 5.3 percent as of Friday.

Newsom’s latest COVID-19 containment plan divides the state into five regions.

Stay-at-home orders kicked in for San Diego County and the 10 other Southern California counties when the region’s overall ICU bed availability fell below 15 percent.

That officially occurred on Dec. 5 and will last at least three weeks from that date.