California getting more COVID vaccine but supplies are short in Stanislaus County
California is taking in a larger supply of coronavirus vaccine from the federal government, but local health officials wish it was boosting the immunity of a larger number of Stanislaus County residents.
Counties like Stanislaus have set up clinics and hatched plans to vaccinate residents en masse. As of Tuesday, however, county officials didn’t know how much vaccine can be offered to eligible residents as the county clinics begin serving people in Phase 1B, Tier 1 of the state’s priority system next week.
That tier includes school employees, daycare, food and agriculture workers and some emergency service employees.
Kamlesh Kaur, a spokesperson for the Stanislaus County Health Services Agency, said the county did not get any extra vaccine through the state this week and doesn’t have a forecast for a bigger allocation next week. The allocations for the county of 562,000 residents have recently ranged between 5,500 and 5,800 per week.
The farmbelt county could conceivably get a higher priority for vaccine because of its sizable food and agriculture workforce. But county leaders have not heard anything, Kaur said.
County Chief Executive Officer Jody Hayes took part in an introductory meeting Tuesday with representatives of Blue Shield of California, which will manage the state’s vaccine distribution network under a third party agreement.
“Unfortunately, there was not a lot of detail with how Blue Shield will support our process going forward,” Hayes said. “There is nothing that suggests we won’t still receive vaccine for running our clinics.”
Hayes added the county will stay the course with other plans for vaccinating people in food and agriculture and education, starting with those age 50 to 65 next week.
Schools may vaccinate their employees
Some school districts may start using closed dispensing pods for providing the shots to eligible staff but it will depend on the state’s vaccine allocation for the county, Kaur said. The county also doesn’t know how much vaccine will be available next week for a coalition of food and agriculture companies that is making plans with the county to vaccinate workers.
Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock, said he is pushing for getting a larger supply of coronavirus vaccine for Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties. Harder tweeted: “We need more vaccines in the Valley. I refuse to let up until we get there.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday that California will get 1.28 million doses this week from the federal government, up from the previous 1.08 million, and next week promises another 1.31 million. The state is adding to a total of 6.3 million doses administered since December.
Still, the state falls short of meeting the demand in counties that have been overwhelmed by cases of COVID-19 illness.
Newsom said the vaccine shortage is due to constraints on manufacturing — Moderna and Pfizer are not producing enough. A single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine awaiting approval might be a game-changer but the shipment of vials in large scale isn’t expected until June or July, Newsom said.
State leaders are relieved by the drop in transmission of COVID-19 illness, which in the past year has resulted in more than 47,000 deaths in the Golden State. State health officials reported 5,692 newly confirmed cases Monday, down from 40,600 a month ago. Over the same time, the state’s test positivity rate has fallen from 11.4 percent to 3.5 percent.
Health experts are watching variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a possible threat of new outbreaks because they are more contagious or not covered as well by the current vaccines.
In Stanislaus County, COVID-related hospitalizations averaged 160 in the past four days, about 200 less than the peak in December. The county’s death toll crept over 900 with the latest update on the county’s dashboard Tuesday.
The county’s adjusted case rate was 31.3 per 100,000 in a state update Tuesday, which firmly places the county in the most restrictive purple tier. Cases need to be 7 per 100,000 or less to qualify for the red tier, under which schools for grades 7 through 12 may reopen.
The county also needs to lower test positivity from the current 9 percent to less than 8 percent and make sure the same requirement is met in low-income neighborhoods. Health officials believe the county could reach the red tier in mid-March.
The county’s vaccine clinics are giving second doses this week but also plan to start 2,430 eligible residents with their first dose. The clinics are serving people in Phase 1A and residents age 65 or older. Modesto Centre Plaza will administer 730 first doses while 700 first doses are planned at Stanislaus State University in Turlock and 1,000 at the Oakdale senior center, Kaur said.
The county’s clinic in Patterson is closed this week. The county is finalizing details for a new clinic site in Patterson that’s expected to open next week.
This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
