Over half of vaccine supply late due to storm
About 702,000 of California’s vaccine doses have been delayed due to a winter storm crippling the Midwest, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday.
The missing doses make up more than half of the state’s expected 1.2 million vaccine supply this week. The delays primarily affect Moderna vaccines. Newsom said he does not know when the delayed doses will arrive.
In the Bay Area, the result was canceled or delayed appointments.
Sutter Health said it was rescheduling some seconddose Moderna appointments due to storm delivery delays, and it has also “paused scheduling new first dose appointments” because of supply constraints.
A Kaiser Permanente spokesperson said shipping delays affected some vaccine supply and the company was reaching out to affected patients to reschedule appointments.
Contra Costa County Health Services said Friday afternoon that one of its pharmacy part
ners is having to cancel nearly 500 firstdose appointments. County spokesman Will Harper estimated that about 1,000 doses are still in transit, but didn’t know how long they would be delayed.
Marin County Health Department spokeswoman Laine Hendricks said the county is rescheduling up to 400 vaccine appointments this week, including seconddose appointments, that require a Moderna vaccine. Affected people will be contacted by email with options to reschedule next week, Hendricks said. Seconddose Pfizer vaccinations and most firstdose appointments will proceed.
Marin County delayed scheduling appointments for Feb. 22 to Feb. 27 because of the uncertain situation. Delays also affect the scheduling of appointments through other providers including MarinHealth and Safeway.
In Alameda County, 3,000 Moderna doses are delayed. The county has enough vaccines to continue operating county sites this week and hopes to receive supplies to do so next week.
Another 2,000 Moderna doses never reached Napa County this week.
San Mateo County expected to receive 14,200 Moderna doses, but hasn’t received information on when the shipment will arrive, and will adjust plans for vaccination clinics as needed, county spokesman Preston Merchant said.
In Santa Clara County, Moderna vaccines expected to arrive this week were delayed, with no timeline on arrival. Providers have enough vaccine to cover appointments scheduled through early next week, and more allocations are still anticipated by Tuesday.
San Francisco’s City College site reopened for second shots Friday, and the Kaiserrun Moscone Center mass vaccination site in San Francisco, shut down because of limited supply this week, will reopen Thursday.
“The vaccine supply coming to San Francisco is limited, inconsistent, and unpredictable, making vaccine planning difficult,” the city’s COVID Command Center said.
San Francisco resident Alex Lau got an automated call from Sutter Health on Friday afternoon that his 86yearold father’s appointment for a second shot was being postponed for two weeks.
“It was disappointing but we’re still living our lives more or less the same — not going out of the house,” said Lau, who was grateful it was at least his father’s second shot and not the first.
Nada Sanders, a supply chain management professor at Northeastern University, said that although accidents can happen, supply chains should have contingencies built to cope with bad weather since it is known in advance.
“This is so predictable and it’s extremely frustrating,” Sanders said, adding: “Everything that we have is resting on this, and we are botching this up.”
Once the winter storm delays pass, a vaccine rampup is expected. Newsom said the state is anticipating “modest increases every week” in vaccine allotment from the federal government.