Humboldt County: Vaccine rollout going well

Thousand-plus health care workers vaccinated

Humboldt County health officials say the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine is progressing smoothly here, with more than 1,000 frontline health care workers vaccinated to date.

“We are working with our community partners diligently right now to make sure that vaccine gets out as quickly as possible and as safely as possible,” said Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman in a Tuesday media availability video.

St. Joseph Health has vaccinated almost a thousand of its frontline health care workers as of Tuesday, according to a statement from Robert Luskin-Hawk, chief executive officer of St. Joseph Health in Humboldt County. On Dec. 23, Mad River Community Hospital announced the hospital had administered 300 vaccines to the hospital staff and 250 vaccines to 13 frontline agencies, such as the Humboldt Bay Fire District and the Mad River Ambulance, by that point.

“Many physicians and other caregivers have commented on the emotional impact of getting the vaccine,” Luskin-Hawk said, “a sense of gratitude and relief that they are on the path to being protected combined with a sense of hope about our world getting safer and a future when time with friends and loved ones once again becomes a reality.”

Among those who have been vaccinated by St. Joseph Health: caregivers from St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka and Redwood Me

morial Hospital in Fortuna; “St. Joseph Health Medical Group physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners; independent physicians; and non-employees who work in the hospital, such as people who work with medical devices, security staff (and) biomedical engineering,” LuskinHawk said.

St. Joseph Health is working with Humboldt County Public Health on plans “to provide vaccination to people who work at Betty Chin’s respite care, (emergency medical services) and staff from the local Skilled Nursing Facilities,” she said.

As of Monday, the state allocated 5,500 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Humboldt County that includes both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, according to a county press release.

The county’s continuing to work through Tier 1 of Phase 1A of the vaccination distribution, which prioritizes workers in health care settings with the most potential for exposure to COVID-19, such as hospital workers and emergency medical technicians, and residents of long-term care facilities.

Tier 2 will open up the COVID-19 vaccine to more health care workers, such as those who provide inhome support services, and Tier 3 will expand to include other health care workers with less risk of direct exposure to the novel coronavirus, such as dentists and pharmacists.

The state hasn’t yet determined who will be prioritized in Phase 1B of the vaccine rollout, Hoffman said, though “we have some early ideas of who that will be.”

People likely to be prioritized in Phase 1B are people age 75 or older and frontline workers who aren’t in a health care setting, such as teachers, first responders, people who work in agriculture and grocery store workers, Hoffman said.

“They’re really working right now where in those tiers of Phase 1B each of those individuals will be,” Hoffman said. “What we hear from the state right now there’s hopeful expectations that we could start moving into 1B in late January or early February.”

That’s contingent on vaccine “production, distribution and other concerns that could come up,” Hoffman said.