Death count climbs: Santa Cruz County works to facilitate vaccinations

The arrival of more vaccine doses brings hope; 10 new deaths in county reported

Since doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines began arriving in Santa Cruz County last month, 7,800 doses have been provided by the California Department of Public Health to vaccinate those categorized in Phase 1a of the state’s distribution plan — health care workers as well as those living and working in vulnerable congregate living settings such as skilled nursing facilities.

Of those 7,800 doses, 3,505 doses, or about 45%, have been transferred to health care facilities.

Claire Henry, the spokeswoman for Dominican Hospital, said that the “majority” of employees and affiliated physicians have been vaccinated. Lisa Nell, the assistant to the CEO of Watsonville Community Hospital, said that roughly 73% of its staff members have been vaccinated.

The county is not aware of how many of the nearly 8,000 doses have been utilized so far, according to County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency spokeswoman

Corinne Hyland. .

“We can’t just give out the vaccine to everyone at this time because of the special handling requirements, so additional vaccines may be allocated that have not been administered/delivered yet,” county spokesman Jason Hoppin said.

Part of what’s keeping county health officials in the dark is the vaccine reporting system.

“Doses administered are not reported back to Public Health but are entered into the California Immunization Registry and we don’t have a mechanism yet for pulling that data,” Hyland said Tuesday. “We hope the state will provide a dashboard in the near future.”

Picking up the pace

Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a press conference Monday that the state needs to do a better job of distributing vaccine doses — doses that need to be handled in a timely

manner, especially the Pfizer vaccine that expires just five days after being pulled out of a dry-ice-like temperature freezer. Though the Moderna vaccine is less temperamental in terms of cold storage and timeline logistics, having the resources to accommodate both FDA-approved treatments and possible future treatments when the state accelerates through the distribution plan phases will be chief to the success of the rollout.

“We are working aggressively to accelerate our pace,” Newsom said after teasing a $300 million effort around vaccine distribution and public education in the state budget for (this) year. “(In the first) 10 to 15 days, we’re going to slowly start building pace, going to start building up, and you’re going to start seeing the more rapid distribution of this vaccine. I can assure you of that.”

Santa Cruz County entered Newsom’s regional stay-at-home order with the rest of the Bay Area region Dec. 17, meaning that the projected ICU capacity will be studied by state health authorities Thursday to see whether the area has at least 15% ICU capacity and can exit the stay-at-home order. County authorities would not comment on whether its leaders were anticipating staying in or exiting out of the order. As of Tuesday, statewide metrics showed the Bay Area region as having 5.9% ICU availability.

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Locally, the Santa Cruz County total, active and recovered coronavirus cases were updated almost daily during the Christmas and New Year weeks but the fatality count remained at 83 for more than a week until numbers flooded in Tuesday. Now, the county is reported that 93 individuals have died — at least, in part, with some underlying, significant health conditions contributing to the gravity of the virus — from contracting COVID-19.

The 84th fatality was a white woman in her 90s with no underlying health conditions that would have contributed to her death. She died Dec. 20 and she was a resident of Pacific Coast Manor in Capitola. The California Department of Public Health reports that the outbreak first reported at the Capitola skilled nursing facility in November has subsided; all previous updates have been taken off the facility’s dedicated page.

The 85th fatality was a white man in his 90s with at least one underlying health condition. He died Dec. 22 and he was a resident of Valley Convalescent Hospital in Watsonville. According to the CDPH, Valley Convalescent Hospital is still mitigating the effects of an outbreak but has less than 11 current active cases among its residents and no active cases among its staff.

The 86th fatality was a white woman in her 80s who had at least one underlying health condition. She died on Christmas. She was a resident of Aegis Living of Aptos. Aegis spokeswoman Nandi Butcher confirmed an active outbreak to the Sentinel on Monday and said late Monday night that just five cases remain between residents and staff.

The 87th fatality was a Latino man in his 70s who had at least one underlying health condition. He died Dec. 27 and was not a resident of a skilled nursing or residential care facility.

The 88th fatality was a white man in his 80s with at least one underlying health condition. He died Dec. 28. He was a resident of Aegis Living of Aptos.

The 89th fatality was a white man in his 90s with at least one underlying health condition. He died Dec. 26. He was the first resident of Maple House in Santa Cruz to die of the virus outbreak at the facility, according to county-provided death data. More than one individual has died of a separate outbreak at Maple House I’s sister skilled nursing facility, Maple House II in Live Oak.

The 90th fatality was a white woman in her 90s who had at least one underlying health condition. She died Dec. 28 and she was a resident of Santa Cruz Post Acute. California Department of Public Health data shows that Santa Cruz Post Acute’s outbreak has since stabilized and there are zero new cases.

The 91st fatality was a white woman in her 70s with at least one underlying health condition. She died Dec. 29 and was a resident of Montecito Manor. The first indication of an outbreak at the Watsonville residential care facility was listed on the California Department of Social Services website Dec. 15; currently, the CDSS does not have any Santa Cruz County facilities listed in the active outbreak category but Aegis.

The 92nd fatality was a white woman in her 80s who had at least one underlying health condition. She died Dec. 27. She was not a resident of any skilled nursing or residential care facilities.

The 93rd fatality was a white man in his 80s who had at least one underlying health condition. He died Dec. 26 and was a resident of Live Oak residential care facility Paradise Villa. The CDSS has not shown a case of COVID-19 in its database at Paradise Villa yet; the Sentinel has reached out to the facility for comment.

As the most recent death certificates were recorded on the county health department’s website, the state reported that there were zero open ICU beds in Santa Cruz County.