The flow of COVID-19 vaccine swells slightly in California, but remains a drop in the bucket for those who want their first dose, according to officials.
Forecasts discussed on Wednesday showed that California should receive 1.28 million doses of vaccines next week and 1.31 million the following week. Both of these figures are higher than the state’s last shipment, which amounted to about 1.08 million.
The expected increase, though welcome, will not come close to the need to clean up the existing vaccination line in California – let alone the millions of others who are eligible to receive the shots about a month from now.
“What we need is more manufactured supplies,” Governor Gavin Newsom said this week.
An ongoing challenge for California and the rest of the country is that both currently available COVID-19 vaccines, one from Pfizer-BioNTech and the other from Moderna, require two doses, which are administered three and four weeks apart, respectively.
Recently, the need to give second shots has prompted officials across the country to restrict access to first doses – or to suspend it directly.
Of the approximately 2.6 million total doses that California is expected to receive in its next two shipments, only about 1.34 million are expected to be available for first doses, according to figures presented at the State Advisory Committee meeting on Wednesday.
“Dedicated allocation is on the rise, so keep your fingers crossed that it is going in that direction,” said Dr. Tomás Aragón, California public health official and director of the state Department of Public Health, said.
It is unclear how the doses will be distributed throughout the state. On Wednesday, Los Angeles County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer said she did not have an estimated grant for the next two to three weeks.
“We still have a fair amount of volatility in what we get from week to week,” she said.
However, as long as the amount of vaccines shipped remains insufficient, officials will have a problem: would they administer a large number of first doses when supplies are available, knowing it could lead to restrictions, or trying to book shots week by week to ensure that people get both doses in their two-shot regimen?
“I was up and down in this state, big cities, small communities … other coastal communities, large-scale sites in Dodger Stadium and Petco Park, in Santa Clara in Levi’s Stadium,” Newsom said during ‘ an information session said Wednesday in the city of Coachella. “At the end of the day, we are suffocating many of these sites due to these restrictions on supply.”
However, more vaccinations are on the way. President Biden announced earlier this month that the U.S. had contractual obligations from Moderna and Pfizer to deliver 600 million doses of vaccine by the end of July.
U.S. drug regulators are also proposing another Johnson & Johnson vaccine candidate that requires only one dose.
“It’s extremely encouraging, but June, July are not March and April,” Newsom said. “And so over the next few weeks we’ll have to be honest with people about what we can and can’t do.”
Another new and unwelcome ripple in the explosion of the vaccine is the winter storms that are raging in other parts of the country.
Although California has largely avoided freezing, officials said this week that difficult conditions elsewhere could affect the delivery of new doses.
In Los Angeles, the winter storm-related delays will affect about 12,500 appointments on city-run vaccines, such as Dodger Stadium, Mayor Eric Garcetti said Thursday.
Two shipments have been suspended due to the bad weather: 26,000 doses, which were due to arrive earlier Tuesday, are still in Kentucky, and another 37,000, which will be used next week, are in Tennessee, LA officials said in a statement.
“Severe weather across the country has disrupted travel and shipping nationwide, including the delivery of our vaccines,” Garcetti said in the statement. “Our city is ready to administer COVID-19 vaccines quickly, safely, and inexpensively – and once doses arrive in Los Angeles, we’ll get them in people’s arms immediately.”
The weather so far has not affected any LA County-run vaccination sites, including Pomona Fairplex, the Forum, Cal State Northridge, the county for education and Six Flags Magic Mountain.
‘Los Angeles County continues to be eligible for people taking second-dose appointments at the state-run sites. It is not yet known what, if any, impact will be felt next week. We will provide information to the public as we learn more, ‘the province’s health department said on Thursday.
Jeff Zients, who leads the presidential team BID’s task force COVID-19, said in a newsletter on Wednesday that the weather has an impact on delivery and distribution companies.
“People are working as hard as they can because it’s important to get the vaccines to the states and suppliers,” Zients said, “but there is an impact on deliveries.”
San Diego County Superintendent Nathan Fletcher said during a weekly COVID-19 update that the supply lines to the sites where Pfizer and Moderna made their vaccines were currently simply frozen. The main manufacturing facilities for the two coronavirus vaccines in the country are in Massachusetts and Michigan.
“Both, as well as the routes from here to here, have been affected by the snow and winter weather conditions we see nationwide,” he said. “It’s going to affect our ability to administer vaccines this week.”
In Orange County, officials had to temporarily shut down their vaccination equipment at Disneyland after an expected delivery of Modern vaccines failed to arrive Tuesday.
The site will close from Thursday to Monday, officials said. Another venue at Santa Ana College will also close temporarily from Saturday, and its reopening will depend on supply.
A representative of the California Department of Public Health could not immediately say on Thursday how widespread the disruption of the vaccine is, but confirmed that California is one of the states affected by delays. ‘
Officials in Fresno County said 7,800 doses of Moderna were tied up due to weather conditions and that they had not been delivered by Thursday morning.
“We do not have a date on which these doses will be delivered at this time,” Joe Prado, divisional manager for community health at the provincial department of public health, said in a statement. “We are working with community medical providers to provide the necessary doses of our stock this week to prevent the cancellation of appointments.”
Some vaccinations also had to be resettled in Santa Barbara County this week after an expected grant of Moderna vaccine “was delayed due to severe weather conditions across the country,” officials said in a statement.
According to Aragón, as of Wednesday, more than 1.45 million Californians have been completely vaccinated against COVID-19. More than 6.4 million total doses were administered throughout the state.
California reported on Tuesday that more than 1.5 million doses have not been used yet – although officials said it is possible for already scheduled appointments, or that the figure may be lower if the doses are not yet detected in the system’s data. collection system not on local suppliers’ individual reporting.
In LA County, more than 1.5 million doses were administered to eligible residents and nearly 400,000 individuals were completely vaccinated according to vaccine.
Officials continued to preach patience in light of the limited vaccine supply, especially as millions more individuals are eligible next month to get the chance.
From 15 March, people between the ages of 16 and 64 who are disabled or at high risk for COVID-19 diseases and deaths can schedule appointments for vaccinations.
Most California counties currently employ people who work in health care, live in long-term care facilities, or are 65 years of age or older. As supplies allow, local agencies can also administer doses to educators and child care workers; food and agricultural workers, including employees of grocery stores; and law enforcement and other emergencies.
In the midst of the ongoing predicament, officials are increasing resources in preparation for larger assignments in the future, although it is unclear when the endeavor will become a reality.
Ferrer said on Wednesday she believes March could be another difficult month for vaccines, but that conditions will improve in April as additional doses become available.
When the expected influx occurs, state and local health officials say they will be ready for it.
“Our ability to vaccinate residents and workers,” Ferrer said, “depends at this stage only on the availability of enough vaccine, because we have many different sites that can cater to the different needs of our population.”
Times writer Jennifer Lu and San Diego Union Tribune staff writer Paul Sisson contributed to this report.