Vaccine updates along the coast
To help keep the Mendocino Coast Community informed of Coronavirus updates, Dr. William Miller, Mendocino Coast District Hospital Chief of Staff; and Tabatha Miller, Fort Bragg City Manager (no relation), have teamed up for The Miller Report, a hyperlocal, weekly column on the progress of COVID-19 within our community.
MCDH Chief of Staff, Dr. William Miller
California Governor Gavin Newsom has asked the State to allocate $300 million for COVID-19 vaccine distribution and education. The first vaccine was FDA-approved about a month ago and California has now received around 1.5 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, combined. Almost all of these are directed to go to frontline health care workers, first responders, nursing home residents and other healthcare and infrastructure personnel.
Criticism is mounting that only about 35 percent of those doses have been administered so far in the state. If we consider the huge logistical challenges to distributing something like this with its special storage requirements, need for careful tracking of doses and that it takes some training of personnel to give the injection, then maybe 35 percent in less than three weeks isn’t too bad for a state as large as California. However, at the same time, California is in the bottom 10 of U.S. states to efficiently get their vaccine allocations administered.
We have been more fortunate here in Mendocino County. The planning done by our county’s health department and the smooth coordination with Adventist Health led to most frontline health care workers getting vaccinated within the first two weeks. We are now gearing up to provide the booster shots to those who received initial doses.
The Pfizer booster is to be given after 21 days (give or take four days) and the Moderna booster at 30 days (also give or take four days). The initial dose is thought to provide about 50 percent of recipients with immunity to the virus that causes COVID-19, with the booster bringing this up to an impressive 95 percent. For comparison, in some years the flu shot only gives 30 percent immunity and in really good years that might get as high as 65 percent.
One of the logistical challenges of distribution that we found here on the coast was that the state decided to send vaccines earmarked for nursing homes through CVS pharmacy instead of through the county health departments. The reason for this decision is not clear to me — however, it led to Sherwood Oaks not receiving any vaccine, with no indication as to when it would be getting it.
Their medical director, Dr. John Cottle, reached out to me and with the help of Dr. Andy Coren, Mendocino County Health Officer, and Dr. Bessant Parker, our Adventist Health Chief Medical Officer, we were able to legitimately appropriate doses from the county’s allocation to be given to Sherwood Oaks staff.
As of this writing, the hospital assisted in giving 58 Sherwood Oaks staff their first shots. The residents should be receiving their vaccinations soon, which is expected to occur through CVS pharmacy. I am proud to see that the collaboration between our two facilities, with the support of the Health Department, continues to be strong after what we forged back with the COVID-19 outbreak at our nursing home. (See A5 in the Advocate-News, and A9 in The Beacon for more.)
In other vaccine-related news, at the beginning of this week the storage freezer being used to hold 830 doses of the Moderna vaccine at our sister facility, Adventist Health Ukiah Valley, failed. This started at about 9 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 3, and by about 2 a.m. Monday morning, had warmed enough that the vaccines started to thaw. According to the manufacturer, the vaccines must be administered within 12 hours of thawing and cannot be refrozen. (See A3 in the Advocate-News, and A9 in The Beacon for more.)
Along with the mechanical failure of the refrigerator, the alarm that was supposed to alert staff that the temperature was out of range, also failed to go off. Fortunately, the backup procedure was to manually check the temperature twice a day and thus at about 11 a.m. the temperature problem was discovered. Immediately, the AHUV leadership notified the Mendocino County Health Department. Together, a rapid and coordinated response was made recognizing that the doses would be lost if not administered within the next few hours.
“The county health department really lead the process of helping us salvage the situation. It was another great example of how we are able to work well together here in Mendocino County,” said Cici Winiger, spokesperson for Adventist Health in Ukiah.
Several Ukiah nursing homes received doses, the sheriff’s office helped get staff at the local jail vaccinated, healthcare workers at various other clinics and locations were vaccinated and, finally, about 300 people in the local community were also vaccinated. It should be stressed that these were all vaccines designated for the first shot and thus, all of those people are guaranteed to receive the booster since the booster doses will still be available in four weeks.
While this event was unfortunate, it was an example of how quick thinking on the part of public health leaders, the sheriff’s office and Adventist Health leadership came together to at least ensure that none of the doses were lost and that all were given in the short time span allotted. Adventist Health is also doing an internal investigation into how this failure of both the refrigerator and its alarm monitor occurred.
Fort Bragg City Manager, Tabatha Miller
One of the challenges we have all faced is trying to predict the financial impact of the pandemic on our personal financial situations, the local economy and the bigger world. To complicate matters, we did not know how long the shut downs would last and in full disclosure, I would say that even now we do not know how long the restrictions on businesses will last.
The city’s sales tax consultant, MuniServices, provided an update for the sales tax collections for Fort Bragg for the third quarter of 2020 — July through September. Overall, the city fared well and cash receipts were up 12 percent over third quarter of 2019.
By comparison, this was well above the meager 1.1 percent statewide increase but below the 13.3 percent increase for the north coast region, and below the 14.4 percent increase experienced by Mendocino, countywide. Fort Bragg also lagged behind the 14.1 percent increase in Willits and the 18.6 percent in Ukiah for the same quarter.
(Please note that the information provided below is limited in detail in order to preserve individual businesses’ confidentiality.)
In Fort Bragg, construction — which includes home improvement stores — saw an increase of 11.3 percent above last year for the quarter. Also not surprising was the whopping 52 percent increase in the category that includes deliveries and internet sales. This segment of the quarterly sales tax collections is responsible for placing the city in the black or positive growth. The general retail category was almost flat at a .1 percent increase over the prior year third quarter.
Categories that did not perform as well included food products. For the third quarter, this category was down 5.6 percent. This category includes retail grocery stores and restaurants. Not unexpected and consistent across the state and even the nation, restaurant sales are way down and grocery store sales are typically up. Transportation was also down by 14.4 percent. This category includes such businesses as gas stations, new and used automobile sales and auto parts.
When you see that Fort Bragg’s sales tax collections are up for the quarter, one can forget that many smaller local businesses are still struggling and some have even closed for good. Many of these businesses were not considered essential under the early Shelter-in-Place orders, particularly in the early part of the pandemic, and therefore were subject to stricter regulations. The city’s data also reflects the trend that small businesses were harder hit by the pandemic.
Reviewing annual sales through third quarter 2020, in total the top 25 sales tax generators were down 2.9 percent. The top 25 generators account for 68.4 percent of total revenue. The businesses that make up the top 26-50 sales tax generators were down 6.6 percent. The businesses that make up the top 51-75 sales tax generators were down 14.4 percent. Those that make up the top 76-100 were down 17.0 percent.
The Transient Occupancy Tax for Fort Bragg was hit much harder in the second quarter of 2020 than sales tax revenues but rebounded during the third quarter of 2020. Revenues for second quarter were down 66 percent, when hotels were closed to all but essential workers. For the third quarter of 2020, revenues were up 8.4 percent and set a record for highest quarterly collections. Following that trend, TOT revenue was up 33 percent for the month of October and 10 percent up for the month of November.
As we continue to see high COVID-19 case numbers and the vaccinations roll out slower than expected, it is hard to predict the effects to the economy locally and nationally.