Vaccine eligibility starting to expand
Contra Costa County now allowing those 50 or older to book appointments
Bolstered by a healthy influx of vaccine and major strides in getting shots into the arms of older residents and front-line workers, Contra Costa County on Monday expanded its vaccine eligibility to individuals ages 50 or older, regardless of underlying health conditions.
The move comes about a week after Solano County made the same decision as available appointments were going unused, while other counties, such as Santa Clara, are finding themselves short of the precious elixir.
Under the expanded-eligibility criteria, residents who live or work in Contra Costa or Solano counties and are at least 50 years old now will be allowed to book a vaccination appointment.
Elsewhere in the Bay Area, eligibility is still restricted to residents 65 or older, those ages 16-64 with disabilities and certain underlying health conditions, and employees in certain sectors, including health care, education and transportation.
“We are making good progress vaccinating those in the groups already eligible and will now continue to prioritize more of the most vulnerable groups in our community,” Contra Costa County Health Officer Dr. Chris Farnitano said in a statement.
Across the Bay Area, Contra Costa has made the most significant progress in vaccinating its already eligible residents. As of Monday, more than a third of Contra Costa County residents 16 or older have received at least one dose of vaccine, including 96% of those who are at least 75.
In comparison, only 69% of Santa Clara County residents 75 or older, 71% of San Francisco residents in that age group and 74% in Alameda County of that age have received at least one dose, according to data tracked by each county.
Monday’s announcement is expected to nearly double the number of residents vaccinated in Contra Costa County, as more than 235,000 county residents are 50 to 64 years old.
“We look forward to the coming months
when we can do away with vaccine eligibility, when anyone and everyone is eligible,” Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors Chairperson Diane Burgis said in a written statement. “More and more doses of vaccine are coming into the county each week, and we expect that trend to continue.”
Unlike other parts of the Bay Area seeing shortages, Contra Costa County in the past week has experienced a significant amount of vaccines.
On top of its weekly vaccine allocation from the state, Contra Costa last week got 14,000 doses from the federal government under a new nationwide program aimed at inoculating medically underserved communities and disproportionately affected populations by distributing vaccines to a select number of federally qualified community health centers. The unprecedented boost in its vaccine supply allowed Contra Costa to open up thousands of additional appointments.
San Francisco, meanwhile, was grateful this week to see a 3,000-dose increase in its regular allotment from the state — 16,260 doses compared with a recent average of 13,000 weekly doses.
The decision by certain counties to expand vaccine eligibility further than the state mandate coincides with the steady decline in the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, a trend that has allowed more counties across California to reopen to a greater extent.
In the Bay Area, Santa Clara, San Francisco and Marin counties this week are expected to enter the state’s orange reopening tier — the second-loosest level of restrictions on businesses and activities.
San Mateo County last week became the first in the Bay Area to enter the orange tier, allowing restaurants, museums, churches and movie theaters to increase their capacities to half of pre-pandemic levels.
Over the past week, several million more Californians have qualified for a coveted shot, creating a bottleneck with a limited supply that cannot meet the high demand.
On March 15, California began allowing people 16 to 64 with disabilities and certain underlying health conditions to book vaccination appointments, though some Bay Area county health systems don’t have enough doses to accommodate them yet.
Santa Clara County, for instance, has not offered a first-dose appointment through its health system in more than three weeks. And for the second time in recent weeks, the county last week notified nearly 9,000 Kaiser patients that their vaccine appointments scheduled at county vaccine sites would be canceled due to supply shortages.
“We know this situation has created challenges and frustrations for the patients whose appointments were transferred, and the County did everything it could to avoid this situation,” a county spokesperson wrote in an email.
The spokesperson said Monday that Santa Clara County’s vaccine allocation for this week was “relatively flat” and “fell short of the number needed to cover all second doses and schedule any new first doses.”
Santa Clara County is not yet a part of the federal health center COVID-19 vaccine program that Contra Costa County recently benefited from, but the spokesperson said officials have received notice that its county clinics will be added in the coming weeks.