Upbeat Stanislaus County officials say COVID-19 vaccine supplies could triple by end of March
Stanislaus County officials said Tuesday they are pleased with a much-improved outlook for coronavirus vaccine allocations.
Within four to six weeks, enough vaccine could be coming into the county to inoculate people of any age or occupation who want the shots, county Chief Executive Officer Jody Hayes said.
At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Hayes said the projection is a “back-of-the napkin” analysis based on increased manufacturing of vaccine and a strong federal push to increase the flow to communities.
In one caveat, Hayes said the county has no control over vaccine supply decisions. “The analysis is encouraging,” the CEO said. “Our team is trying to stay optimistic in terms of what we should prepare for in serving the community.”
Staff said the county expects to lift the 50-and-older age restriction next week on administering shots to residents in Phase 1B, Tier 1 at public clinics. The change will allow education employees and people of any age working in childcare, food and agriculture and emergency service to get vaccinated at county clinics in Modesto, Turlock, Oakdale and Patterson.
Between people age 65 and older and the workers in those sectors, the county estimates 174,000 residents are eligible for vaccine under Phase 1B, Tier 1.
Board Chairman Vito Chiesa stressed the “food” sector in Phase 1B does not just include workers in canneries and meat processing facilities but also includes grocery workers and restaurant employees. The county expects large turnouts at clinics next week when the age restriction is removed for Phase 1B, Tier 1.
In another development regarding the pandemic, Stanislaus County did not meet the data requirements Tuesday for qualifying for the red tier of the state’s reopening plan. The county needs to be in the red tier for local middle schools and high schools to open later this month.
Top county officials were still hopeful the state criteria will be met next week and the county can still move to the less restrictive red tier by the week of March 15.
Good outlook for vaccine supply
The vaccine supply is viewed as the key for safely reopening schools, getting restaurants open indoors and restarting other economic sectors impacted by COVID-19 in the past year.
The county allocation from the state was increased to 9,000 doses this week. The county expects to get 5,200 doses from the first shipment of newly approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine to California this week and in additional weeks.
Based on its population of residents 65 and older and employees in the food and agriculture sectors, the county receives 1.3 percent of a growing state vaccine supply.
The county is not the only source of vaccinations. Community health centers, medical offices, drugstores and the OptumServe clinic in west Modesto also receive vaccine from state or federal sources.
All told, the county could see a weekly supply of 30,000 doses by the end of March, Chiesa said on Monday. “We could be up in the 20,000 (doses per week) range in a week or two.”
With the surge in supplies, thousands of more residents will have access to vaccine earlier, but the county won’t likely achieve immunity in the population by July. One county projection had estimated that 38,000 doses per week would immunize the population by that month.
County officials had been skeptical about the state’s third-party agreement for Blue Shield of California to manage a statewide vaccine network. County staff providing an update on the pandemic Tuesday were not so concerned about the agreement, which took effect Monday.
Staff said the goals of the agreement are ensuring vaccine delivery capacity, better oversight of accounting for all doses, equity in vaccine delivery and simplified access to vaccines.
According to staff, Blue Shield has told the county it should receive a read on its vaccine allocations two to four weeks in advance, which will allow for better planning of public vaccination clinics, pop-up clinics and other efforts to reach people. Under the current system, the county is informed on a week-by-week basis.
Dr. Julie Vaishampayan, county health officer, said Sunday that county public health receives about half the vaccine doses allocated to Stanislaus County and has no information about the other half of vaccines, making it impossible to tally the total doses delivered and administered.
“If Blue Shield is running things, it could be a good thing, as they can see all of the data and track the demographics,” Vaishampayan said.
Local data fails to meet red tier criteria
Stanislaus County’s case rate of COVID-19 illness was 15.6 per 100,000 in a state update Tuesday, which is about twice the rate for qualifying for red tier and lighter restrictions on businesses and schools.
The county met the two other state-required measures for test positivity (6.3 percent) and health equity test rate (7.3 percent), both of which were under the 8 percent threshold.
Stanislaus could make the red tier by the week of March 15 — the target for opening some schools — if the general case rate falls below 7 per 100,000 in next week’s review.
Another path to the red tier is for the county test positivity rate and health equity rate to drop below 4.9 percent and 5.2 percent respectively. If that happens, the county qualifies for the new tier even if new cases remain in the purple.
The state review next week looks at the county data for this week. Two consecutive weeks of data meeting the criteria gets the county to red tier by the week of March 15.
Modesto Bee staff writer ChrisAnna Mink contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 2, 2021 at 2:30 PM.
