Push for bigger vaccination sites
Officials attempt to boost state’s lagging distribution
State and local officials are starting to open mass vaccination centers to speed up coronavirus immunizations and to accommodate the millions of additional Californians now eligible for vaccines under the state’s new, looser guidelines.
Vaccination sites are opening as soon as this week at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Petco Park in San Diego and Cal Expo in Sacramento, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a news briefing Monday. Some sites are also opening in the Bay Area, though for now they are for health care workers and by appointment only. But they are poised to open to members of the broader public in the next few weeks.
Opening mass vaccination clinics marks the next stage of a historic immunization campaign that began just a month ago, when the first vaccines were injected into the arms of highrisk health care providers.
Since then, California has administered less than a third of the doses it has received from the federal government. That puts California near the bottom of U. S. states for vaccination rates and puts immense pressure on public health officials
to speed up the process.
“We recognize that the current strategy is not going to get us to where we need to go as quickly as we all need to go,” Newsom said. “So that’s why we’re speeding up the administration not just for priority groups but opening up large sites to do so.”
As of Sunday, the most recent date for which data is available, about 783,000 of the 2.9 million doses that have been shipped to California counties and health care providers have gone into people’s arms, according to the state. That works out to 1,981 doses per 100,000 people.
By comparison, South Dakota and West Virginia, which have the highest vaccination rates, have administered 5,451 and 5,376 doses per 100,000 people, respectively, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Even though many health care workers can get vaccinated through their employer or health care provider, county officials hope that opening additional sites can speed the process. Plus, Bay Area counties anticipate that within a few weeks, the largescale vaccination sites can start immunizing people in the next group, Phase 1b, which in California includes about 15 million essential workers and people age 65 and older.
The loosened state guidelines, announced Thursday, allow counties and health care providers to start vaccinating people in Phase 1b now, as long as they have made vaccines available to everyone in Phase 1a. But many Bay Area counties and providers are still working through Phase 1a, and do not expect to launch fully into Phase 1b until the end of January or early February.
In California, Phase 1a includes about 2.4 million health care workers and residents of longterm care facilities. Phase 1b, which the state has yet to finalize, likely will be divided into two tiers. The first includes people who work in education, emergency services and food and agriculture, plus people who are age 75 and older. The second tier includes people who work in critical manufacturing and transportation, plus people who are 65 and older and people who are homeless or incarcerated.
“In the next two weeks we’ll finish vaccinating the first groups of people and begin vaccinating the next group,” said Dr. Ori Tzvieli, deputy health officer for Contra Costa County. “We’re looking at people over 75 and essential workers, such as teachers, child care workers, police and grocery workers. As more residents become more eligible for immunizations, health care providers will let their members and patients know how to make vaccine appointments.”
The county announced on Monday that a Safeway location will begin offering shots this week, and that additional Safeway and Rite Aid stores will join in the next two weeks. Contra Costa County declined to specify the location of the Safeway because it is currently vaccinating only Phase 1a health care workers by appointment. The county is notifying people who may be vaccinated there.
Most residents in the county will get vaccinated by their own health care provider, not at a county vaccination clinic, Tzvieli said. Large health care providers, such as Kaiser Permanente and Sutter, will be notifying their patients when they are eligible to make appointments for vaccinations, he said. Notifications are expected to start before the end of the month.
San Mateo County on Monday opened a mass vaccination center at a site that had previously been used for coronavirus testing. The San Mateo County Event Center vaccination clinic is currently only for health care workers, who must sign up for an appointment online and fill out an attestation form asking if they live in the county and work with patients in person, and advising them not to share or forward the link to others. Upon arrival, they will have to show photo ID.
In San Francisco, where most residents have private or public health insurance, the public health department will help get vaccines to the remaining vulnerable residents who are not covered. Public health officials said they would work with private providers like Kaiser to open larger vaccination sites.
Santa Clara County is also vaccinating health care workers who are not patients at the large health care systems by appointment at Good Samaritan Hospital and Regional Medical Center. It plans to open an additional site at El Camino Health in San Jose, which is slated to begin online appointment scheduling Tuesday and giving shots next week.