Santa Clara County’s public health officials now say anyone aged 65 and over can get their vaccine from anywhere in the country.
The province’s new ‘no wrong door’ policy, announced on Thursday morning, makes it possible for the elderly to be vaccinated regardless of who their normal medical provider is.
“A Kaiser patient can go to the county, a Stanford patient can go to Kaiser, a provincial patient can go to Stanford (to be vaccinated),” said Dr. Sara Cody, provincial health officer, said. “No matter where you go, we want you to be vaccinated.”
Provincial officials said the change would take effect immediately within the provincial hospital system, while it could take a few days before all of South Bay’s vaccine providers move on.
The announcement comes a day after health officials from eight provinces in the Bay Area recommended all health care systems to vaccinate residents 65 and older.
“Our effort to get more and more people vaccinated requires simplicity and clarity, and to this day we have honestly had too little,” said provincial supervisor Joe Simitian. “When we say we’re all in this together, we must mean it.
Simitian said access to the vaccine should not depend on what medical provider someone has, or how many vaccines it has within a given week.
This week, Kaiser also announced that he had canceled more than 5,000 appointments for patients 65 and older because the hospital “did not receive the predicted vaccine supply” when the appointments were made. The move caused frustration and fear among many Kaiser patients who were excited to get the popular vaccine.
“In the last three weeks, it has become clear that the (other hospitals) have not received adequate doses to look at their numbers and have talked to other health systems,” Jeff Smith said. “Kaisers are significantly shortened as they represent about 40% of the insured population (in California).”
Smith said the recent cancellations have been a factor in this latest policy change.
“When we saw that Kaiser was forced to cancel … We had to ask ourselves how we could fix it and how we could intervene in the best way,” Smith said.
More than 80% of COVID-19 deaths in Santa Clara County were in residents 65 years and older.
“We must, and we can, prevent as many of these deaths as we are collectively capable of,” Cody said.
About 37% of residents over the age of 75 have been vaccinated so far, while about 28% of the more than 65 population have been vaccinated, according to the provincial government.
“The complex distribution and allocation system of the state, combined with vaccine shortages, has led to an unequal vaccination of vaccines in the country, depending on where people get their medical care,” Smith said. “The ‘no wrong door’ approach we apply is designed to get available vaccines into your arms as quickly and fairly as possible to save lives.”
At the same time, officials in South Bay have called on the state to speed up the distribution of vaccines, and increase the allocation to Santa Clara County, as it has slowed down transportation.
About 180,000 residents of the country received at least one dose of the vaccine, while just over 48,000 received both doses needed to provide protection against the disease.
As of Thursday, Santa Clara County has reported more than 103,000 cumulative cases of COVID-19 and 1,473 deaths due to the disease.
Visit www.sccfreevax.org for the latest information on being eligible for vaccine. This week, the country also started running a phone line for residents without internet access or those who need additional help making appointments.
The Valley Connection Call Center can be reached at 408-970-2000. The center is open Monday to Friday from 07:00 to 21:00 and Saturday and Sunday from 08:00 to 16:30. Help is available in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and other languages.
Contact Madelyn Reese at [email protected] or follow @MadelynGReese on Twitter.