Mass vaccination sites coming to county
Santa Cruz County is committed to getting doses it receives from the state out of its Emeline Avenue facility within 10 days, county spokesman Jason Hoppin said Tuesday. That’s why mass vaccination sites are not just a topic of conversation in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s social media briefings, but in county-level calls, too.
While Hoppin said that plans for a mass vaccination site are in the works, the county is not yet ready to announce the details. He said it won’t be a drop-in facility.
“I think people do want to know we are doing it,” he said. “Mass vaccination sites will be fairly commonplace going forward once they’re underway.”
The county did have mass vaccination sites in its vaccine distribution plan, required for submittal to the California Department of Public Health. Local health authorities highlighted the idea of drive-thru vaccination point of dispensing (or POD) locations.
“This eliminates the concern for crowd control while preserving social distancing and allows for members of the same household to be vaccinated in one step,” Health Services Agency representatives wrote.
Right now, Santa Cruz County is in Phase 1a, or the initial phase guided by the state’s coronavirus vaccine distribution plan. Hoppin told the Sentinel that the expected date that the county may enter Phase 1b, moving beyond medical professionals and staff and residents of congregate living facilities to essential workers such as teachers and food workers, in early February. Santa Cruz City Manager Martin Bernal said during the Santa Cruz City Council meeting Tuesday afternoon that it could be as soon as next week.
“Although we are still in the planning phase, County Public Health is working on scheduling mass vaccination clinics in collaboration with our health care partners,” said Health Services Agency spokeswoman Corinne Hyland. “We will finish those in Phase 1a before moving to Phase 1b.”
As Santa Cruz County leaders look ahead at vaccinating more people at once, they continue to monitor weekly dose shipments. Monday night alone, Hoppin said, 5,000 vaccine doses came into the county health facility — primarily Moderna vaccine doses. He said that in total, the county has received 16,725 doses, 6,825 of the doses being Pfizer vaccine doses and 9,900 being Moderna vaccine doses. Of those 16,725 doses, 5,315 have been dispersed to local hospitals and clinics.
The vaccine doses are precious as community transmission shoots higher countywide. Though there was a discrepancy between statewide and local testing positivity rate numbers, the current positivity rate is 12.3% — a significant jump, Hoppin pointed out, from the 9.6% positivity rate listed just one week before. The positivity rate, updated every seven days, shows that if there is a big jump after Christmas the trend isn’t likely to stop there.
“Over the next few weeks that ( positivity rate increase) will translate into additional hospitalizations, additional infections and, unfortunately, additional deaths,” Hoppin said.
Hoppin advised those who can stay home to do so as much as possible and anyone who has to go in public to wear a mask. No one should be gathering
with anyone outside their own household.
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Community transmission is visible in deaths reported in the last week. More frequently than ever, residents who do not live in a congregate living facility —- host of the majority of deaths, still, to date due to the vulnerable populations that occupy the buildings — are dying.
On Monday, the county had recorded 106 total deaths related to the novel coronavirus. By Tuesday, that number jumped to 111.
The 107th fatality was a Latina woman in her 50s that died Jan. 1. She had no significant, underlying health conditions that would have contributed to her death. She was not a resident of a skilled nursing or residential care facility.
The 108th fatality was a white man in his 90s who died Jan. 6. He had at least one underlying health condition and was a resident of Dominican Oaks in Watsonville.
The 109th fatality was a white woman in her 80s who died Jan. 4. She had at least one underlying health condition. She was not a resident of a skilled nursing or residential care facility.
The 110th fatality was a white woman in her 80s who died Jan. 6. Like her predecessor, she had at least one underlying health condition and was not a resident of a skilled nursing or residential care facility.
The 111th fatality was a white man in his 80s who died Jan. 5. He had at least one underlying health condition that added to the stressors of his COVID-19 infection. He was not a resident of a skilled nursing or residential care facility.