POLICE OFFICERS GOT VACCINATED IN NO-WASTE EFFORT

Law enforcement agencies utilized unclaimed doses

Hundreds of police officers in San Diego County rolled up their sleeves to get COVID-19 vaccines before they were officially eligible under loosely coordinated efforts that matched unused shots with those who wanted protection against the coronavirus.

For weeks, police agencies directed officers interested in getting the shots to vaccine sites, including hospitals and a community college, where they were given leftover doses after scheduled appointments were completed. One North County hospital determined police officers were eligible because they transported behavioral health patients.

Vaccine providers are allowed to administer shots to people outside eligible tiers under county and state guidelines that seek to ensure no doses are wasted.

Vaccines were made

available to police officers, as well as non-sworn employees, in a variety of ways, with some efforts starting in mid-January.

Cal Fire San Diego, which partnered with the county to provide vaccines, rolled out what it called a zero-waste plan. When someone failed to show up for an appointment or when a vial contained an extra dose, law enforcement agencies were contacted to ensure the doses would be administered.

Cal Fire Capt. Thomas Shoots said the fire agency would coordinate with a sheriff’s commander, who would contact law enforcement agencies across the county to offer the doses at Cal Fire Cuyamaca College and Carlsbad sites. So far, 1,200 doses have been administered to law enforcement officers through the zero-waste plan. Another 1,680 doses were administered to teachers.

Shoots said the unclaimed doses were available to anyone in the same tier as law enforcement officers, including teachers, with priority given to anyone 65 and older. It was not immediately clear how teachers were offered the vaccines.

More than 700 San Diego police officers were vaccinated before Saturday, when their tier became eligible. Vaccination sites would call every day to say they had vaccines that needed to be administered within the hour, said department spokesman Lt. Shawn Takeuchi.

“We sought out sworn and civilian employees who were working,” he said. “In most cases, too many people showed up and people were turned away, but that was OK with us since our goal was not to waste a vaccine.”

Takeuchi said there would be 20 to 25 doses available most days. He said the vaccines were offered at the Petco Park superstation and a site in Balboa Park where the San Diego FireRescue Department administers vaccines. Officers also received vaccines from Rady Children’s Hospital, UC San Diego Health and Sharp HealthCare. A San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokeswoman said the Balboa Park site also offered vaccines to Harbor police officers.

Police officers in Oceanside and Escondido were encouraged to sign up for vaccines at Palomar Hospital and at Riverside University Health System in Riverside County, which opened vaccines to police officers and others in the same tier earlier than San Diego County.

Palomar said they vaccinated front-line police officers who transported behavioral health patients to Palomar Medical Center Escondido and a spokesman cited county guidelines that allowed “paramedics, EMTs and other staff providing emergency medical services” to be vaccinated.

“These vaccinations occurred at the same site where healthcare workers were receiving their vaccine,” hospital spokesman Derryl Acosta said in an email. To date, 78 Oceanside police officers and 66 Escondido police officers have received at least one vaccination dose through Palomar, with 17 still needing a second dose, he said.

The efforts to get vaccines for police officers were so effective that some departments say nearly everyone who wanted to be vaccinated had already received their shots before Saturday. In some cases, half the department has declined the shot for now.

On Monday, Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla opened a vaccination site that was prioritizing law enforcement workers and officials reached out directly to agencies to tell them appointments were available — but they received far fewer responses than expected.

“We called police chiefs (to offer appointments) and they said, ‘We are all done,’” recalled Chris Van Gorder, CEO of Scripps Health.

Van Gorder said he’d heard that some law enforcement officers had been getting vaccinated, but he was surprised by the numbers.

He said Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista recently had five extra doses and couldn’t find anyone on their list of people trying to get appointments who was available to get the vaccines before they expired. So they called the Sheriff’s Department and found five deputies who wanted to be vaccinated. One of the doses was four minutes from expiring.

“I knew there were some officers that were getting them here and there... but I had no idea the scale,” Van Gorder said. “Obviously, people had to know.”

In an email, a county spokesman said there was no county program called “zero waste.”

“Every day most sites have a small amount of unused vaccine,” county spokesman Mike Workman said. “The vax sites are permitted to give that to people without appointments. Starting first within the existing eligible tier. If those people are not readily available, it can be offered to law enforcement.”

The issue of when to allow law enforcement officers to be vaccinated came to a head in early February when county Supervisor Joel Anderson proposed moving law enforcement personnel to Tier 1A. Anderson called for the prioritization of vaccines for law enforcement personnel, saying they are on the front lines of the pandemic.

Chula Vista police Chief Roxana Kennedy, president of the San Diego County Police Chiefs’ and Sheriff ’s Association, and other law enforcement leaders had called for the vaccine to be available to officers earlier in the rollout. She noted that other counties in the state, including Orange and Riverside, had made the vaccine available to law enforcement officers. At the time, she said about 3,600 officers in San Diego County still needed the vaccine.

The Board of Supervisors ended up voting 3-2 against expanding eligibility to police officers. At the board’s Feb. 9 meeting, County Public Health Officer Dr. Wilma Wooten said seniors were still most likely to die from the disease, while law enforcement officers represented just 0.2 percent of people hospitalized with COVID-19.

County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, who voted against moving up the vaccine eligibility for officers, said she had no problem with police officers being contacted about taking unused vaccines. “I think its important that we don’t dump any vaccines in the garbage,” she said.

Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, who chairs the board and opposed prioritizing officers, did not respond to requests for comment.

In an interview Tuesday, Kennedy said law enforcement officers felt they were “being pushed off to the side” while lifeguards and cannabis workers were able to get vaccines before officers. She said she was happy that the zero-waste outreach efforts were able to get police officers access to the shots.

“If the vaccine was going to go unused and a law enforcement officer had the opportunity to receive that vaccine, then I’m ecstatic,” said Kennedy, who received both shots in recent weeks. “The last thing I would want is for a vaccine to go unused.” In Chula Vista, between 45 and 48 percent of the Police Department’s 400 employees have received one or both shots, officials said. About 45 percent of employees have received vaccines in the Oceanside Police Department.

“At this point ... pretty much everybody who said they wanted a vaccine have gotten a vaccination,” said Oceanside police Capt. Sean Marchand. “It has been very important to us as an organization to ensure that our folks are provided the opportunity so they can get to their jobs safely.”

In National City, Capt. Graham Young estimated between 90 and 100 employees, both sworn and nonsworn, had gotten a vaccine through zero-waste efforts. He said the department, which includes 120 employees, was offered the chance to claim two to nine vaccines on most days beginning in February. The department went through a list of employees who wanted the vaccine.

The captain said the opportunity for officers to get the shot was “huge,” adding that the department would find it difficult to respond to emergencies if a large number of officers on the front lines came down with the virus.

La Mesa police Lt. Greg Runge estimated that his department got six calls in recent weeks as part of the zero-waste effort. The vaccines were made available to officers and non-sworn employees, Runge said. He didn’t have an estimate on the number of employees who actually received the shots.