Gov. Gavin Newsom announced California’s detailed vaccine distribution plan in a news conference Thursday afternoon, emphasizing the need to carefully strategize who will be among the first to get the vaccine.
"It’s one thing when you hear the national news talk about well, we broadly all agree that our healthcare workers, skilled nursing residential care and assisted living facilities should be prioritized. But that is millions and millions of people," said Gov. Newsom.
He announced Monday that the state will receive about 327,000 doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine in the first batch, pending FDA approval. Those doses should arrive around December 12-14.
"When you only have a few hundred thousand doses of vaccines, and that’s doses - you need two doses - you can cut that in half in terms of the number of people that will actually be fully vaccinated," the governor said. "We need to look at sub-prioritization of those doses and we have done that."
The state’s vaccine working group has outlined three tiers of healthcare and skilled nursing facilities who will get priority access to the first batch of vaccines.
Tier 1: Acute care, psychiatric and correctional facility hospitals; skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities and similar settings for older or medically vulnerable patients; paramedics, EMTs and others providing emergency medical services; dialysis centers
Tier 2: Intermediate care facilities; home health care and in-home supportive services; community health workers; public health field staff; primary care clinics including federal qualified health centers, rural health center, correctional facility clinics and urgent care clinics
Tier 3: Other settings and healthcare workers including: specialty clinics, lab workers, dental/oral health clinics and pharmacy staff not working in the higher tier settings
"That’s the priority," explained Gov. Newsom, developing by the vaccine working group based on principles of equity and fairness.
He also issued a harsh warning to anyone who may hope to skip the line.
"We will be very aggressive in making sure that those with means, those with influence are not crowding out those that are most deserving of the vaccines. I mean to say that those that think they can get ahead of the line and those that think because they have resources or they have relationships that will allow them to do it, we also will be monitoring that very, very closely."
Gov. Newsom also specified that these recommendations are based on the first round of doses expected from Pfizer, and that the state is also anticipating that more doses will come in subsequent rounds from both Pfizer and Moderna.
The state’s coronavirus response website will continuously be updated with vaccine protocols until all residents can see where they fall in the queue.
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