California ranked 49th out of 50 states in administering COVID-19 vaccines, as the state used less than 28 percent of its allotment as of Friday, amid mounting anger and frustration from people who want to get their shots.
Now comes word that the Trump Administration does not have a reserve stockpile after all, meaning additional doses that were expected next week will not make its way to residents anytime soon.
Many questions now hang in the air surrounding the slower-than-expected coronavirus vaccine program in the state.
But one California health official is reassuring that it will all come together with a little bit of time and patience
“Currently what we have heard from the federal government directly is that, right now, our supply will be stable,” said Dr. Tomas Aragon, the Director of the California Department of Public Health and the state’s Public Health Officer. “We’re receiving information that the vaccine supply will be adequate and will be increasing.”
As many residents and employees in California expressed concerns over the pace of the state’s vaccination process, Dr. Aragon addressed those frustrations.
“The biggest complaint that we’ve been getting is we need more vaccine,” Aragon said. “So we’re in the process right now of really understanding the data flow, as to why we’re underestimating the amount of people who are getting vaccinated. It’s a little bit complex because what happens is, is that a vaccine goes to hospitals that vaccinate their healthcare workers - healthcare workers work in different counties, and so the flow of vaccines in the data systems to monitor all that is something that’s very new. All that is being looked into so we can really get a better picture.”
But Aragon said that, in terms of the flow of the vaccine, it is happening – despite what many residents may think.
“I know from the goal of vaccinating a million more Californians in ten days – the calculation I have is 79.8 percent,” Aragon said. “So we are moving in the right direction.”
Meanwhile, many Californians are still confused about when they will be able to receive the vaccinations, and how they will know when their turn has come.
“The change that we made recently was really to start working on an age-based approach,” Aragon said. “A couple of reasons for that is that it’s actually easier to focus on the age-based approach, and we know from the hospitalizations, that the vast majority of people of people being hospitalized, admitted to the ICU and dying are people over the age of 65.”
Along with that, Aragon said that many of those people facing the most complications from COVID-19 come from the Latino and African American communities.
Aragon said that, even though residents may be eligible to receive the vaccine, whether they will actually get that vaccine sooner depends more on if that resident’s county is ready to make the vaccines more available, which is more likely to happen after the fact that healthcare workers have received first priority.
“So you will be seeing over the next couple of weeks a real transition as people wrap up Phase 1A and move on to Phase 1B,” Aragon said. “It will be different in different counties because every county has a different population.”
Aragon said that healthcare systems will play a huge role in the success of the vaccine distribution process as healthcare companies are the ones that have the specific medical history and personal information of each resident under their care.
