California upends how it’s divvying up scarce vaccines

Another sudden shift in state policy has triggered an array of concerns and confusion today about how California’s still-scarce COVID-19 vaccine supplies will be divvied up.

Dr. Mark Ghaly, the state’s top health official, announced that 40 percent of California’s vaccine supply, starting with 2 million doses, will go to the poorest and most diverse communities.

“I’m lost, honestly, it’s just confusing,” one local health officer said at a board meeting today of the California Conference of Local Health Officers.

The county and city health officers — who run the vaccine programs in their communities — said they weren’t pleased that they only heard about the major policy shift from news outlets. Community clinics, which provide health care in those neighborhoods, also said they were not notified.

Local health officials also highlighted a more immediate concern: As Sutter Health, one of the major vaccine providers in California, cancelled tens of thousands of vaccine appointments for lack of supply, county-run vaccine clinics are starting to see “Sutter refugees” — people who are scrambling to get their second doses before a certain deadline.

The communities receiving the 40 percent encompass 400 of the state’s ZIP codes, largely in Los Angeles County, the Inland Empire and the Central Valley, based on their low scores on the “Healthy Places Index,” which measures criteria such as income, education, park access, air pollution and housing.

Ghaly said about 1.6 million doses already have been administered to the underserved communities that the state is now targeting. So now those communities will receive at least 400,000 doses more in the next two weeks, double the current supply.

People in those ZIP codes must still meet eligibility requirements before they can be vaccinated — at this point, people 65 and older, health care workers, educators and some other essential workers.

Many questions remain about how the state will ensure doses get into the arms of people in those communities. Many counties and cities, particularly Los Angeles, Oakland, Richmond, Sacramento, Long Beach and San Diego, have affluent neighborhoods right next to poor neighborhoods. And some ZIP codes, such as one in Hawthorne and Manhattan Beach, contain both types of neighborhoods.