‘I encourage everyone to take advantage [of the vaccine] next week, everyone over 16, ”Gavin Newsom, governor of California, said Thursday. However, residents of the state may find it difficult to follow the governor’s advice, as California will see a 15% drop in total vaccine supply and an 88% drop in Johnson & Johnson shots, just like millions residents are eligible for vaccination.
When Newsom announced on April 15 the extension of vaccine admission to all residents over the age of 16, there were concerns about vaccine provision. The governor himself said the vaccination program of the state is limited only by manufactured supplies.
At the time of the announcement, a statement from the governor’s office read: ‘California expects to receive approximately 2.5 million first and second doses per week in the first half of April, and more than 3 million doses in the second half of April. April. ”
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Late Wednesday, the governor’s office revealed that the proposed allocations had dropped drastically. This week, the award was 2.4 million doses. Next week, however, it will drop to 2 million doses, a decrease of 15%. The week after, just 1.9 million doses dropped another 5%. This is more than a million doses less than the previously expected ‘3 million doses in the second half of April’.
The offer will be even stricter for those looking for first doses. While there are 1.49 million first shots available this week, the supply will drop by 1/3 to 1 million next week and another 4% next week to just 956,000 first doses.
The declines are mostly due to a decrease in J&J vaccine inventory following a manufacturing defect in a Baltimore plant that contaminated 15 million doses.
Asked about the error on April 1, Newsom was optimistic, saying: ‘This is what we were told: that our three-week window on J&J was not affected by this manufacturing problem in Baltimore, which means – let me be specific – what we expect to receive thereafter 572700 doses [now this] week of J&J, 215 400 doses a week later and 215 400 doses the week after. ”
Health officials in California announced late Wednesday that J & J’s award this week was a hefty dose of 574,900, but next week would be just 67,600 and then to 22,400. The timing is not good.
Although only the Pfizer vaccine has been approved for ages 16 and 17, the drop in Johnson & Johnson doses puts a dent in the entire system, forcing health officials to prioritize second doses to ensure the mass of those who were recently given their first shots. will be able to complete their vaccinations even if stocks fall.
California health officials point out that these three-week forecasts make up only about 70% of the state’s supply. There are still 30% sent directly by the federal government to pharmacies, some vaccination sites and other institutions. Some of these doses may come from feed pools that are not affected by the manufacturing accident in Baltimore. Newsom himself received such a dose and moments after he was vaccinated on 1 April, he announced: ‘The J&J dose I just received comes from the Netherlands. It is independent [state] offer. ”
The governor at the time also said that the state expects an increase in the stock of Pfizer and Moderna. However, this does not appear to be the case, as the total forecasts in the coming weeks are more than just the number of missing J&J doses.
California officials note that states across the country are seeing many drops of J&J vaccine in the coming weeks. This is absolutely true. The difference is that not all states have planned an aggressive expansion of the vaccination provision at exactly the same time.
The last time the governor announced a major extension of vaccine consent was on March 15 when he ordered Covid-19 vaccine appointments to be made available to people aged 16-65 with an underlying health condition. The group consists of 4.4 million Californians.
The timing of the expansion was also problematic. This coincided directly with what Marta Green – a government official who oversaw the third-party vaccine administrator – called a ‘very challenging’ moment.
‘If we look at the concrete information we have,’ Green said, ‘the three-week projection of the CDC, it’s hard for me to tell, it’s completely flat. There is not a single [additional] dosage. Not one. ”
So the governor expanded the pool of Californians eligible for vaccine at a time when the state would have no additional supplies. Official health officials across the state have expressed concern – not for the first time.
On his second day in office, President Biden promised local health officials a three-week window on incoming vaccine supplies. As of March 31, Newsom has still not provided projections of LA officials for more than one week.
Why are three-week projections important? Vaccination sites need to be able to plan people for a number of appointments that match the number of doses coming in. Ideally, it is a process that takes place weeks ahead of time. If this does not happen, you will find examples such as Dodger Stadium, which can deliver more than 7,000 vaccinations a day, but was closed last month because vaccine delivery did not match the appointments. The country’s largest vaccination site therefore had to close its gates for two days.
“This week we received only 16,000 new doses,” then-Mayor Garcetti said at the time. “It’s about the number of new doses we give every day,” he said. “It’s 90,000 lower than last week. This is unacceptable. ”
President Biden also promised that by April 19, there would be enough vaccine to qualify for everyone, but local health officials in California have repeatedly encountered state-level bottlenecks. These issues have focused on promises and promises that have been kept – and around the lack of information on vaccination of Sacramento vaccines.
Asked at the end of February about the lack of transparency, the governor said: “Next week, the provinces will start getting their three-week window, specifically March 1.” But March 1st came and went and Newsom’s promise was not fulfilled. He then said on March 15th. The date also came and went without moving.
Last week, public health officials in Los Angeles said for the first time that they had three-week projections. However, the performance was short-lived. Asked about the lack of predictable appointments this week, Barbara Ferrer, director of public health in LA County, said Wednesday: ‘We are still struggling to release appointments ahead of time. We’ll really try to get a smoother forecast. ‘
The fact that there is still ominousness and uncertainty in California’s largest metropolis, as the state seeks the largest expansion of suitability so far next week, is problematic. And the pass is eligible California-aged 16-49 may be the group that currently needs the vaccine the most.
Numbers shared by Los Angeles public health officials on Wednesday indicate that Covid-related hospitalizations have risen over the past two weeks with each age group between the ages of 12 and 49. (Remember here that the 50+ last week were eligible came, while those 65+ have been vaccinated since mid-January.) See table below.
According to dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is also increasing cases among young adults nationwide. “The trends and data suggest that cases are increasing nationwide, as we are seeing them occur especially in younger adults,” she said Monday.
The conclusions were reached a day later by dr. Anthony Fauci strengthened. “We are seeing more and more young people getting into serious trouble,” he said, “namely serious illnesses, which require hospitalization and sometimes even tragic deaths among young people.”
This may have something to do with the rise of more contagious variants across the country, and the increased susceptibility of young Americans to the variants toward the country’s older, more vaccinated population. This is a trend that California is not immune to.
The state and some of its largest communities have begun to raise some Covid numbers again. This is because most of the Covid-19 test samples analyzed genomically in Los Angeles County last week were concerned variants, meaning the variants are now more common than the ‘wild’ version of the virus. The list was led by the more contagious British variant – known as B.1.1.7 – which this week also became the dominant strain in the US. The CDC says that the British variant is 50% more transmissible than the wild variant.
Of course, the troubled Newsom, just this week, announced that the state plans to drop most of its Covid-19 restrictions on June 15, as long as the number of infections and vaccinations continues to move in the right direction.
The rising numbers, if they continue, could test Governor Newsom’s claim this week – and in recent years – that reopening is “driven by data”.