⏩ Contra Costa expansion: Everybody 16 and over vaccine eligible.

Contra Costa County on Tuesday expanded eligibility for coronavirus vaccinations to everyone 16 and older, becoming the first in the Bay Area and one of the first large counties in the state to offer shots to all comers.

The move brings Contra Costa County’s roughly 1.2 million residents in line with about a dozen states that have opened up vaccinations to those 16 and older. It marks an early start to socalled vaccine open season, at least in one corner of the Bay Area, and preempts by about two weeks California’s target date to do so statewide.

The county was also one of the first to extend vaccinations to people 50 and older, which it did last week, ahead of the state’s plan to do so Thursday.

The expansion means there are no more eligibility requirements — such as age, job or underlying medical conditions — for people who live or work in Contra Costa County, other than being at least 16. There are 375,000 people who are 16 and older who have yet to be vaccinated, according to the county.

“I’m grateful that my entire family is eligible,” said Scott Bloom, 51. The Pleasant Hill

father of two teenagers was among the first in the newly extended age group to get a shot on Tuesday, and he scored appointments for his two children as well.

Bloom said he was tipped off to the expanded eligibility through an email sent out by Supervisor Karen Mitchoff; he used the county’s MyChart app to find the appointments.

“It gives us peace of mind,” Bloom said.

County officials are urging residents to request vaccine appointments by filling out an online request form. People must live or work in the county in order to qualify for shots. And the newly eligible must book the appointments through the county system, CCHealth.org; they will not be able to book appointments through the state system, MyTurn, until the state opens vaccines up to people 16 and over on April 15. It appears many but not all vaccination sites in the county are accepting appointment requests from the newly expanded group as young as 16.

One private provider, John Muir Health, said it has not yet expanded to 16 and over, though it plans to do so in April. Nonetheless, countyrun sites do represent more than 70% of the county’s total vaccination capacity, and people do not have to go through their normal providers to get vaccinated.

The county said in a statement Tuesday morning that its community clinics had thousands of appointments available, urging those over 16, now eligible ahead of the coming statewide over16 expansion on April 15, to sign up.

“Appointments were full almost immediately,” Bloom said. “I am the first person I know to take advantage of this new eligibility.”

About 27% of county residents ages 1649 have already been vaccinated because they were eligible for other reasons, such as being an essential worker or having underlying conditions, officials said.

While more vaccine supply is coming from the state and federal governments — the county has received 84,500 doses this week, an increase of 30,000 doses compared with last week — people may not be able to get their shots right away even though they are eligible. The county is prioritizing people who live in lowincome areas, which generally have higher infection rates, and plans to soon open walkin clinics at the Richmond Auditorium and Bay Point Health Center.

“Will we have supply to vaccinate 375,000 in the next week? Probably not,” Contra Costa County’s deputy health officer Dr. Ori Tzvieli said at a briefing Tuesday. Supply should catch up to demand in a few weeks, he said.

“We have 20,000 open appointments right now and start sending out tickets today,” he said. But over the next three to four weeks I expect that us, along with our partners La Clinica, LifeLong, community pharmacies, Kaiser, John Muir, Sutter — all of us together will be vaccinating 100,000 doses a week. Within a few weeks we'll be able to work through the backlog. Please be patient with us.”

Contra Costa is not the first California county to offer shots to those as young as 16. Butte County announced Monday that it is doing so, and its health director said a few other smaller Northern California counties also took the step before Monday.

Bloom said that even after his children get their shots they will not stop following the established coronavirus mitigation measures.

“I feel it’s too soon to tell if the vaccine will spare us from another surge, so I think our lifestyles will be similar for at least a little while longer,” he said. “For my son, who is an athlete, I know he was worried and now he can play with less anxiety.”

Contra Costa County has been able to expand eligibility faster than many other counties in part because of the way the county manages community health clinics known as federally qualified health centers, the county said. These health centers — which include clinic networks like LifeLong Medical Care and La Clinica — recently started getting more vaccine directly from the federal government through the Health Resources and Services Administration, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“Removing barriers of all kinds, including confusing eligibility criteria, is an important step in furthering our equity goals,” Contra Costa County Health Director Anna Roth said in a statement. “This is an important day.”

In Contra Costa County, these clinics are managed by the county, which has deep freezers that can store the Pfizer vaccine. The federal Health Resources administration currently has a lot of Pfizer vaccine but can give it only to vaccination sites that can store the doses, which require ultracold temperatures. That suggests one reason federally qualified health centers in Contra Costa County could be getting more vaccine than federally qualified centers in other counties, which do not all manage clinics locally.

Last week, after the county expanded vaccine eligibility to everyone 50 and over, demand for vaccine appointments quickly surged, according to John Muir Health, a major vaccinator in the county. Within 24 hours of the announcement, 90% of vaccine appointments were booked and just a few open spots were left as of Tuesday, said the health system’s spokesman Ben Drew.

Simply expanding eligibility to all, without making the signup process simpler, could mean lowincome communities that need shots the most will still not be able to access them, said Dr. Michael Stacey, chief medical officer of LifeLong Medical Care, which runs community clinics in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. It already happens, he said, because many in those communities don’t have internet access or a smartphone to constantly check for appointments. He said the county should offer more vaccine options that don’t require online booking, such as dropin or walkin clinics, and restrict vaccine at those sites to people who actually live in those communities.

“I get concerned when criteria is expanding and the process hasn’t been made easier to get those appointments,” he said. “There’s still a lot of highrisk individuals in the impacted communities who still have not had access, true access, to being vaccinated. I believe people in those communities want to be vaccinated, if it was just easier to get that vaccine.”