In the coming weeks, the supply of COVID-19 vaccine in Los Angeles County will intensify due to an expected shortage of shots produced by Johnson & Johnson – just as people with underlying health conditions are eligible for vaccinations.
‘We’re not going to get Johnson & Johnson for the next two weeks [vaccine doses]. This is a problem with manufacturing production, ”Barbara Ferrer, director of public health in LA County, said on Tuesday, warning that vaccine supplies would be tight in March.
California is still finalizing the list of medical conditions that will qualify people under 65 for the COVID-19 shot that begins Monday, Ferrer said.
Last month, a state bulletin said healthcare providers could use their judgment from March 15 to take in people aged 16 to 64 who are serious due to health conditions such as cancer, chronic kidney disease, chronic risks or due to COVID -death. lung disease, an affected immune system due to an organ transplant, Down syndrome, pregnancy, sickle cell disease, heart disease, severe obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Ferrer predicts that hundreds of thousands of additional people in LA County with underlying conditions will be eligible for the vaccine.
“Our numbers are likely to drop slightly in how many doses we get, but we will have a lot more people eligible on Monday,” Ferrer said. “So, I feel bad about always asking everyone to be patient, because even though it’s your turn, it’s still going to be difficult to get appointments.”
Ferrer suggested that people with underlying conditions contact their healthcare providers to ask about the vaccination. “The easiest way to get vaccinated is to go to your service provider, or if your service provider has an agreement with a network, to get vaccinated,” Ferrer said.
The complexity of vaccination efforts is contributing to the growing dissatisfaction among officials in provinces across the country who are being forced to use the state’s flawed My Turn appointment system to manage vaccinations.
Dr Christina Ghaly, LA County Director of Health Services, said the adoption of the My Turn system to manage vaccinations for the province’s public hospital system would disrupt her agency’s vaccination efforts, leading to inefficiencies and hardships.
Ghaly said her department would continue to use its own electronic health record system to manage vaccinations, and later upload information to a state immunization registry. Switching to the My Turn system will force clerks to enter data twice – once in the provincial health system database and again in the My Turn system, she noted.
Ghaly calls My Turn a ‘completely unnecessary system’.
Ferrer supports Ghaly’s concerns. “Please do not add a layer of complexity to healthcare providers who are already doing good work,” Ferrer said.
The My Turn system is also guilty of having previously relied on access codes distributed to people in underserved communities to receive vaccinations. The codes leaked, leading to people from richer and predominantly white communities showing up at vaccination sites in lower incomes and mostly non-white neighborhoods, and attempting to target poorer areas with vaccinations. Partly as a result, people living in the wealthiest communities in California have doubled the vaccine doses of those living in the poorest neighborhoods.
One solution proposed by the state was to use individualized codes, but Ferrer said it was not a good option either.
‘If you have a [healthcare] do you know how much work it is to call all your patients to give them individual codes so they can sign up for an appointment, as opposed to just an appointment? “Ferrer said at the LA County Board of Supervisors’ meeting on Tuesday,” No one really wants to issue individual codes to their patients so they can come to My turn with a secure appointment. ”
The My Turn system is flawed in other ways – including sending thousands of residents to vaccinations in the wrong province, where they are told they cannot get the vaccine.
Supervisor Kathryn Barger said San Bernardino County officials told her that 5,000 LA County residents showed up there to be vaccinated because the My Turn website sent them by accident.
Ferrer said this is the “biggest problem for every province at the moment” because My Turn is not set up to recognize geographic boundaries that prevent residents from registering for shots outside their own provinces.
This has led to people driving long distances and believing that they will be vaccinated. just to be turned away, Ferrer said.
‘People are very angry, and this is understandable, but the [vaccine] awards are made on the basis of the population in the provinces and in times of scarcity, we must make sure that we can take care of the people who live and work in this country, and this is not fixed in Me. Turn around, ”Ferrer said.