Stanislaus County tries to open 3 more COVID vaccine clinics. Demand is intense.
Stanislaus County officials said they are working to expand COVID-19 vaccinations for priority groups including seniors age 65 and older, as more vaccine is anticipated from the state.
The county expects to open a second vaccination site next week at Stanislaus State University in Turlock.
Hundreds of people descended Thursday on a county vaccination clinic on Scenic Drive in Modesto, the day after the state announced seniors age 65 and older were given a priority for the vaccine.
The county is also in conversations with officials in Patterson and Oakdale to open two more vaccination hubs in those cities, which would give the county four in trying to meet intense demand for the vaccine. Opening dates and other details of the Oakdale and Patterson sites will be released when a plan is final, a county spokesperson said.
The county was administering doses that remained from a state allocation of 25,225 doses for Stanislaus County, which was said to be around 7,300 earlier in the week. A spokeswoman said Thursday evening the county has yet to receive additional vaccine from the state, as counties and private health care providers cranked up coronavirus vaccination efforts in Northern California.
When people arrived for the Modesto clinic Thursday morning, authorities formed them into lines with spacing. The clinic was vaccinating people at a clip of 215 per hour, said Kamlesh Kaur, spokesperson for the county Health Services agency.
Thursday evening, officials said in a post on the StanEmergency Facebook page that 1,630 people received vaccines at the site that day. The clinic at 830 Scenic Drive runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The county agency is giving the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine to health care workers and others in the Phase 1A priority group, along with seniors 65 and older. Appointments are not necessary and people should expect to wait in line.
County officials acknowledged there was a need to manage the large numbers who showed up. But they viewed it as a success.
“We fully realize there is going to be an element of chaos to this,” Sheriff Jeff Dirkse said. The county will try to make improvements as things progress with COVID-19 vaccinations, he added.
Mike Fultz of Turlock was the first person in line for the vaccination clinic, arriving at 3:45 a.m.
Fultz, 68, said he woke up early after learning people 65 and older were given priority. The Vietnam veteran said it’s not known when the Department of Veterans Affairs will have coronavirus vaccine available for its millions of patients.
“My wife and I watch our grandchildren at times and our grandchildren are in school,” said Fultz, who has diabetes. “The school they go to has had an outbreak. So we are scared we are going to get exposed.”
Around 9:30 a.m. Thursday, the county posted a message on the Stanemergency.com Facebook page that the clinic was almost full. People were invited to come back Friday or check with their health care provider on how to receive the vaccination, which requires two doses.
Kaur said those who received the first shot at the clinic were given a vaccine card with a return date for the second dose.
Clinic draws some criticism
The county received some criticism in comments on the Stanemergency page. Mara Mullins suggested that vaccinations for healthcare workers should have been completed before the clinic was opened to more residents.
Dental office employees were given one day for vaccinations and did not find out until it was halfway over, Mullins wrote. “They need more notice than that.”
Other residents praised county staff for handling the crowd smoothly, distributing coffee and water to those waiting.
The county is partnering with pharmacies to assist with vaccinations and open additional opportunities to administer the shots in a county with 562,000 residents.
“We have received interest from many local pharmacies that have capacity to vaccinate,” Kaur said. The county is working on details of getting the pharmacies involved with vaccination opportunities.
The county is expecting private health care providers and community clinics to offer vaccinations to their patients, as part of the effort to end coronavirus outbreaks that have infected 40,000 county residents and resulted in 720 deaths.
Sutter call center flooded with requests
Sutter Health, with medical offices across the Central Valley and Bay Area, began offering COVID-19 vaccine appointments Thursday to patients who are eligible healthcare workers and seniors, but within hours phone lines were jammed, according to Bay Area media.
A Sutter website said its call center was experiencing high demand and long wait times.
Kaiser Permanente said Thursday it has given doses to more than 97,000 health care workers in the state and continues with those vaccinations.
Kaiser is committed to act as quickly as possible to provide vaccine to patients who are eligible, including seniors 65 and older, “but given the limited supply of vaccine nationally it is important to know that not everyone who is eligible will be able to make an appointment right way,” Kaiser’s statement said.
The Oakland-based health provider said it’s updating the kp.org/covid website as information becomes available and expects high call volumes as people try to make appointments. By next Friday, it expects to have an online self-service tool to allow eligible patients to schedule an appointment if vaccine is available.
For those who were vaccinated, Stanislaus County promoted a V-Safe app and the vsafe.cdc.gov site for monitoring side effects of the vaccine, which may include pain at the injection site, fever, chills, fatigue and headache. The symptoms usually last 24 to 48 hours.
This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
