With COVID-19 vaccines in California there is still a shortage, there is more and more debate about who should get the next priority for the shots and how quickly the state can better complement the efforts to satisfy a better demand .
The state has launched a high-level task force to sort out logistics on how residents with disabilities and underlying health conditions will get next priority, state officials announced at the vaccination advisory committee meeting Wednesday.
The group has spent a lot of time discussing how the residents will be taken into account in the state’s priority guidelines – a recommendation that could come as early as Friday.
“We take it incredibly seriously. This is the next priority group, ”said dr. Erica Pan, state epidemiologist, said.
The current committee’s proposal is that individuals between the ages of 16 and 64 with underlying health conditions or disabilities are the next group eligible for the vaccine.
It was not immediately clear whether the recommendations would overcome the previous plans to set an age-based priority list or how the suitability would be determined. It was also unclear when vaccinations would be available for the groups.
Other sections of the population are also struggling to gain access to the vaccines earlier, including essential workers and teachers, who have made the vaccination a necessary step to get back into the classroom.
Teachers and those working in food and emergency services are prioritized to health workers, staff for long-term care institutions and residents and adults 65 and older. But the limited amount of vaccines made the timeline difficult to determine.
LA County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer said Wednesday that “the limited vaccine supply requires a balance of priorities.”
Among the groups to be considered are people whose age, underlying health conditions or other circumstances put them at greater risk of dying from COVID-19. Other Angelenos work in institutions with an increased risk of coronavirus transmission and may carry the virus home. Others operate in fields that provide critical public services.
“There are a lot of people who need to be vaccinated, and it’s very difficult to determine which of these priorities are more urgent, urgent and important,” she said during a briefing on Wednesday. “So we will all have to be patient.”
According to Ferrer, the province administered about 1 million doses of vaccines, just a little of what is needed for the residents of more than 10 million. But supplies are inconsistent.
In LA County, 193,950 doses arrived the week of January 11, but only 168,575 were delivered the following week and 146,225 the week after.
“The name of the game now is to keep everyone alive,” Ferrer said. ‘This is the most important place for us … to get as many people as possible to be able to stay alive during this pandemic, and to reduce the risk for those at greatest risk of dying. ‘
A nationwide shortage is so sharp that some California provinces that began offering vaccines to lower-priority groups, such as teachers, childcare workers, and others working in educational institutions, have stopped vaccinating the group. to concentrate on seniors.
Marin County announced Jan. 21 that the restrictions on supply forced it to prioritize vaccinations on 75-year-olds, and officials stopped planning appointments for people in lower-priority groups.
A joint statement by eight local health agencies in the Bay on Wednesday said officials would prioritize health workers, people living in long-term care facilities and the elderly. In the provinces of Marin, Napa, Santa Cruz and Solano, residents aged 75 and over are given priority; while the provinces of Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara prioritize people 65 and older.
‘Three of the four COVID-19 deaths in Marin are among our residents aged 75 or older. A vaccine offered to a resident over the age of 75 is more than 300 times more likely to save a life than a vaccine offered to someone under 50, ‘said Dr. Matt Willis, the health officer in Marin County, said in a statement.
‘Across the region, most COVID-19 deaths were in the age group 65 and older. “The vaccination effort on those at greatest risk of death will therefore have the greatest immediate impact on saving lives,” the joint statement said.
The Bay Area does not have enough vaccines to vaccinate all residents aged 65 and older, much less other worker-based groups that are on the state’s proposed priority list: educators, food and agricultural workers and first responders .
Weekly dose allocations across the Bay – received from a formula designed to ensure equitable distribution around the world – have declined compared to shipments in December and early January. With the current pace, it will take several weeks to offer a first dose to all older adults who would like to be vaccinated, officials said.
“We need to be direct and honest with the public that, although we all want to be vaccinated, we just do not have enough vaccine to do so,” said Dr. Sara Cody, Santa’s health officer and director of public health. Clara County, said in a statement.
“Given the limited supply of vaccine, we should give preference to those who vaccinate the greatest risk for death or serious illness,” she said. “We are eager to vaccinate a much broader section of the population and are ready to do so as soon as the vaccine supply allows.”
While federal officials said Wednesday that there will be more vaccines soon, local health officials in California, including LA County, have complained that their weekly shipments are actually getting smaller, not bigger.
“We have gradually increased the amount of vaccine we send to countries,” Jeff Zients, coordinator of President Biden’s COVID-19 task force, said Wednesday. “We expect to work hard to monitor and assist the manufacturers and assist in increasing supply.”
Gavin Newsom said Wednesday he expects California to receive about 1.06 million vaccine doses this week, an amount he says is “encouraging.” Yet he said California – like the rest of the country – is “limited by supply”.
“We recognize what you recognize: there are parts of the state that already have no more vaccines, where they are shrinking in terms of their dose increase because they are running out,” he said. “The federal government does not have the doses to support states like ours on the scale we would all like to see.”
However, the rate of vaccinations has accelerated in recent weeks. According to data compiled by The Times, about 7.4% of California residents received at least one dose, and California administered nearly 63% of the doses – a dramatic improvement from a week ago.
Amid the excitement, advocates for the disabled have fought to ensure the group gets a higher priority.
‘I appreciate that the state has made it clear for the first time today that people with high-risk disabilities and underlying health conditions will be the next priority population, and that they are working with us to come up with an implementation plan. I would feel much better if they committed themselves to a time frame for vaccinating high-risk people with disabilities, “said Andy Imparato, executive director of Disability Rights California and a member of the Vaccine Advisory Committee, on Wednesday.
“It feels like we are getting lip service and that the State Department of Public Health does not really understand how to prioritize and vaccinate high-risk people with disabilities,” he said, adding that the state will update its guidelines, although the state implied. , the plan has not yet been drawn up.
As for teachers, government officials and federal officials have for some time insisted that campuses for kindergartens be reopened safely through 12th-grade students without vaccinating teachers – and they reiterated this on Wednesday.
“There is increasing data to suggest that schools can reopen safely, and that safe reopening does not indicate that teachers should be vaccinated,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the new director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during an information session. of the White House COVID-19 Response Team.
Asked about the CDC director’s comments, Newsom said he endorsed “according to the position of the Biden government, which was reaffirmed in their press conference today, that we can safely reopen schools with [an] appropriate level of support. ”
Times staff writer Howard Blume contributed to this report.