Mass vaccination site set for Central Valley as Stanislaus County struggles for shots
A scarcity of vaccine continued to hamstring Stanislaus County’s effort to vaccinate residents against COVID-19, as the county is faced with demands to inoculate school teachers, agricultural workers and other groups.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, while speaking in San Diego on Monday, mentioned a mass vaccination center for the Central Valley in coordination with the federal government. The governor did not disclose where it might be or other details, but said the state has discussed it with political representatives in the Central Valley.
Newsom was speaking at Petco Park in San Diego, which surpassed 100,000 doses administered last week as one of the vaccine super-stations that have emerged in Southern California and the Bay Area.
In responding to a question from a Fresno media outlet, Newsom said the Central Valley matters and the state will be prioritizing more mass vaccination efforts in the region. Fresno County is able to administer 40,000 doses of COVID vaccine per week but has been getting a supply of 8,000 doses.
The Fresno Bee reported Monday that the Central Valley site will be in Fresno, where the city had submitted the Save Mart Center as a location for large-scale vaccinations. The mass sites that have been designated in California, such as the Oakland Coliseum and Petco Park in San Diego, receive a dedicated supply of vaccine on top of the respective county allocation.
Newsom said the San Joaquin Valley received less vaccine during initial allocations for health care workers in Phase 1A, because larger metropolitan areas in California have more robust hospital systems and a larger number of healthcare workers.
In Stanislaus County, the main question this week is: Where is the vaccine?
A spokesperson for the county Health Services Agency said there’s a scarcity of first doses, so the clinic at Modesto Centre Plaza will focus this week on second doses only. The clinic will be open from Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The clinic at Stanislaus State University in Turlock will administer second doses only from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday.
The county was running a mobile clinic Monday at the King-Kennedy Memorial Center in west Modesto providing 200 first doses. The county also reserved the first doses it has for a clinic Friday at the Gladys Lemmons Senior Center in Oakdale. The Oakdale clinic will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The county’s clinic in Patterson is closed this week. The county vaccine clinics for people in Phase 1A or seniors 65 and older do not take appointments. They are first-come, first-served.
Kamlesh Kaur, a county spokesperson, said staff has at times posted on social media that there is “no line” at clinics held in the county but that doesn’t imply a lack of public demand or that the clinics have finished vaccinating groups in Phase 1A of the priority system.
The occasional short wait times at the Stanislaus State or Patterson clinics have been due to foul weather, she said. People came out to the clinics after the short wait time was posted. The clinics used all of their vaccine on those days, Kaur said.
Stanislaus County public health has been getting about 5,000 doses per week through the state. Part of that is given to local health care providers and the rest is administered at the public clinics in Modesto, Turlock, Oakdale and Patterson, Kaur said.
Stanislaus County mobile vaccine clinics
On Monday, the Stanislaus County COVID-19 response team started a pilot program of mobile vaccine clinics to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to communities in need.
The StanEmergency mobile unit and immunization team, including Spanish-speaking staff, provided residents of west Modesto with the opportunity to get vaccinated at the King-Kennedy Community Center.
“We’re starting with the King-Kennedy site ... to make sure the vaccine is more accessible, and the rollout of it is equitable to all neighborhoods and people in our community,” Kaur said.
She said west Modesto is one of the areas that has been hardest hit by the pandemic, with the local 95351 ZIP code having the highest COVID-19 case rate in the county, roughly 1,114 cases per 10,000 residents in the previous 30 days.
The neighborhood population in west Modesto is predominantly low-income, Latino/Hispanic, has many senior citizens and some residents have limited transportation.
Claudia Epperson, 69, a 40-year resident, said she lives only five minutes from the King-Kennedy center and she was happy to come get her first COVID shot.
“It didn’t even hurt,” said Epperson, chuckling. “I want to be safer than I am now without it.”
She said she researched about the vaccines and talked to her pastor, who is also a doctor, and she felt confident in getting the shot.
The mobile clinic had 200 doses of the Moderna vaccine, available on a first-come, first-served basis, with emphasis to vaccinate people older than 65 with proof of residence in the area. However, other individuals in the top tier, such as health care workers, were not turned away.
Jesus Villa, 63, a promotor with King Kennedy community outreach program, was one of the first vaccinees at Monday’s event. Promotor(a) is a person from the community who provide peer health education to others in their own community.
Mostly in Spanish, Villa said, he was initially reluctant to get immunized, because he heard bad things about the side effects. His friend and fellow promotora, Marisol Marin, helped with Spanish interpretation.
Villa said after talking with Marin, he was no longer afraid and was glad to get immunized, because it would allow him to continue his community outreach, and he could show others how important it is to get vaccinated.
Marin said before the Monday clinic, the promotoras took 450 flyers door-to-door in the neighborhood to inform people about the event. The mobile clinic had a steady stream of clients, but there wasn’t a line waiting.
A lack of vaccine information and time among field workers
Julian Isquierdo, a field worker from Grayson who stopped by a local testing center on Feb. 5, said he wants to get the vaccine “as soon as possible” to make him feel safer.
Isquierdo, who is 70, said he tried to get vaccinated twice in Modesto, but the lines were too long. His cousin waited in line for nine hours to receive his shot, he said. Isquierdo plans to try a vaccination center in Patterson next.
He said he wishes the vaccine rollout were happening faster, especially among field workers like himself. The people who pick the food everyone eats should not be “left behind,” he said.
Rosario Luquin, a part-time field worker from Vernalis, also said workers like her should be prioritized more in the process. Luquin told the Bee in Spanish that she and her fellow field workers only have short breaks during the day, which isn’t enough time to go to a vaccination center.
Luquin added that mobile teams dispatched to the fields to provide workers with information about the vaccine — as well as reassurance about its safety — would help.
“I don’t think all of the field workers are informed about the vaccine,” she said.
She also said a mobile clinic that could come out into the fields to administer vaccine doses would help increase their accessibility.
Youth promotoras helping out in west Modesto
Youth promotoras were volunteering at the mobile clinic providing COVID-19 healthy kits with hand sanitizer, masks and information to help reduce the risk of getting infected.
Kaur said the county is planning additional mobile clinics in other neighborhoods based upon the Healthy People Index, which includes multiple health, income and demographic factors to assess a community’s health risks.
County public health has not yet heard from California Department of Public Health about the steps to open vaccinations to the next eligible tiers, which will include the education, industrial and agricultural sectors, which accounts for about one-quarter of the county’s workforce.
The county is working with community-based organizations to develop a plan for immunizing farm workers at their job sites, including education about the vaccines and addressing the reluctance by some workers to be involved with a government agency.
Kaur said the county has not had any vaccine doses go unused by the top priority group, though on a few clinic days they have done call outs to recruit more eligible people to get vaccinated.
La Familia Farmacia on Crows Landing Road has also been providing Moderna vaccines to community members.
“I saw the need for our Hispanic community, but now I offer (the vaccine) to anyone who qualifies in the tiers,” said Miguel Oseguera, owner and pharmacy technician.
He said the his pharmacy is the only one is South Modesto, and he began the process to become a COVID-19 vaccinator months ago, which has included a lot of paperwork for the state and the county.
Vaccinations are done by appointments, but they don’t let any vaccine go unused. So far they have administered more than 80 doses of the vaccine.
Patterson Family Pharmacy said it has administered the Moderna shots to more than 500 residents and will start giving second doses Thursday through its curbside service. Residents make appointments with the pharmacy for the vaccine.
Owner and Pharmacist Ali Wright said about 80 people have appointments for second doses Thursday. The pharmacy has a waiting list for the next phase of vaccinations once that is approved by the county, Wright said.
“We are still getting a lot of calls and are scheduling appointments,” Wright said. “We are waiting on the county to give us guidance on the next tier,” Wright said. “One of the benefits of a pharmacy is we have appointments so people know what day and time to come in.”
The majority of people making appointments are from Patterson, Newman, Crows Landing and Westley, but a few have traveled out from Modesto and Turlock for the shots. The drugstore also has done vaccinations at home for home-bound residents in Patterson.
This story was produced with financial support from The Stanislaus County Office of Education and the Stanislaus Community Foundation, along with the GroundTruth Project’s Report for America initiative. The Modesto Bee maintains full editorial control of this work.
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This story was originally published February 9, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
