California to extend COVID-19 vaccine pool to people at high medical risk, disability

From mid-March, the COVID-19 vaccine will be eligible for people with serious health conditions and disabilities who would be at high risk of death if they contracted the virus, an extension that coincides with California sharpening the spread of vaccines improve. rates over the past month.

Public health officials released a bulletin to health care providers and doctors on Friday announcing that from March 15, they have the discretion to vaccinate people between the ages of 16 and 64, which according to COVID-19 has the highest risk of disease and death. has. The fitness list includes the following conditions: Cancer, chronic kidney and lung disease, Down syndrome, organ transplantation, pregnancy, sickle cell disease, heart conditions that do not include high blood pressure, severe obesity and type 2 diabetes.

The bulletin also gives a wide discretion to vaccinate people with a disability who a doctor believes are very susceptible to a life-threatening illness or death due to COVID-19, or their ability to seek medical attention or other ongoing care, limiting “what is essential to their prosperity. -being and survival.” Officials added that these criteria “are subject to change.”

“I’m excited,” said Aaron Carruthers, executive director of the California State Council on Developmental Disabilities, which serves people with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, severe epilepsy, autism and other life-threatening conditions. “I appreciate the governor’s and the government’s deep commitment to people with developmental disabilities and other disabilities that put them at high risk for COVID.”

This expansion is a shift to phase 1C of the state’s vaccination levels and indicates a sharp increase in the confidence of the state to vaccinate its residents. A month ago, California was 41st in the country in the administration of vaccines, a product of intricate distribution and detection that led to unequal access, exacerbated by early reluctance by health workers to get the shots.

The Golden State now ranks 19th, and federally managed vaccine production will continue to accelerate. Blue Shield and Kaiser plan to adopt and streamline protocols for the allocation of civil servants to ensure the looming expansion and equitable distribution of vaccine access to groups such as food and farm workers and people with underlying health risks.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday that California administered 67% of the nearly 8 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna it received and that more than 10% of the state’s 40 million residents received at least a first dose. . So far, it has been mainly health workers, residents over 65, and some emergency workers and teachers. But only a quarter of them are fully vaccinated.

Before Friday, about 13 million Californians were eligible to receive the vaccine. It will rise to as much as 19 million on March 15.

The state averaged 11,320 new COVID-19 cases per day in the past week, a quarter of the rate from the same point in January, which marked the peak of the state’s winter virus flow. The improvement includes a 50% decrease over the past two weeks, according to information compiled by this news organization.

Coronavirus deaths have been around 414 a day in the past week, down nearly 25% from two weeks ago but still three times higher than any point before the winter wave.

Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist on infectious diseases at UC San Francisco, said the declining rates and deaths could be partly explained by vaccinations.

“We saw it two or three weeks ago,” Rutherford said, pointing to a decline in deaths at nursing homes plagued by the virus early in the pandemic.

He also attributes the decline to declines in populations in densely populated areas – mainly Latino neighborhoods that carry an excessive virus burden – because residents gain expensive natural immunity while health officials struggle to send more vaccines to them.

Vaccine production is steadily increasing, and later this month FDA approval is expected for a Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which is priced because it requires only one shot and does not require frozen storage like the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna treatments.

But the demands of a population of more than 300 million are still declining supply. The CDC reported Friday morning that just over 69 million doses of vaccine have been distributed in the country, and that about 36 million Americans have received at least a first dose. Only a third of them are fully vaccinated.

Yet Rutherford says the path of the country’s progress in controlling the virus continues to improve. Mass vaccination sites such as those set up at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, the Oakland Coliseum and the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and mobile vaccination units and national pharmacy chains entering the vaccine network, are seen as indicators of the devastation of COVID -19 the crest.

In a Thursday appearance in the program “Today”, dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Officer of President Biden, COVID-19, confirms that wide access to vaccines could come as early as mid-spring.

“I would imagine that, when we are in April, we would call it, for a better wording, ‘open season,'” Fauci said. “Virtually anyone and everyone in any category can start vaccinating.”

But because of the supply, Fauci said, the practical impact of the broader qualification – the herd immunity needed to safely lift the movements and shelter restrictions – is unlikely to be seen until mid to late summer.