A text on vaccines has forced Kaiser Permanente to cancel more than 5,000 appointments in Santa Clara province for the elderly who would receive COVID-19 vaccinations.
In what Kaiser spokesman Marc Brown called “a very unfortunate development”, the hospital could not receive the vaccines it expected when people booked appointments for late January and early February.
Brown said staff had scheduled people for the vaccine based on previous deliveries and “guidance” from the state and country.
“We understand the frustration it causes, and we continue to do everything in our power to increase the supply of vaccines, working in partnership with state, state and federal governments,” Brown said in a statement. email said on questions from The Times.
When additional vaccines are obtained, Kaiser will reschedule the appointments, preferably to 75-year-olds and older, Brown said.
Kaiser will also try to reschedule those aged 65 to 74, “but we need a significant increase in the supply of vaccines to plan this population,” he said.
In the meantime, Brown said, people may be able to get vaccines from state and provincial providers.
Kaiser is hardly the only vaccine provider that has forced cancellations due to doses not coming as expected. Last week, Ralphs pharmacies in Los Angeles County had to cancel appointments after the province “recovered” 10,000 doses from the chain it wanted to use at mass vaccination sites, reports The Times.
For Kaiser, the cancellations included about 750 appointments scheduled from January 29 to January 31 for people 75 years and older. An additional 4,500 appointments that were for people aged 65 to 74 on January 29 to February 5 were also canceled.
Kaiser CEO Greg A. Adams said in an email to members over the weekend that the hospital has the capacity to administer 200,000 vaccines a week in California, but that it does not have the doses. He predicted that it would take several months before the vaccine supply in the United States approached as needed.
Kaiser has more than 9.3 million members in California, but has so far received only about 300,000 doses across the state to vaccinate health care workers and patients.
Due to the limited supply, Kaiser is now restricting the vaccines to health workers, residents of long-term care facilities and people aged 75 and older, Adams said.
Kaiser expects an increase in supply in the coming weeks and is prepared to open additional locations and deploy mobile clinics to administer the doses. Kaiser also works with state and local governments and other healthcare providers to open high-volume websites across the state.
One in every 1,000 Californians is now dead from COVID-19. More than half – at least 22,500 Californians – have died since November 1.
Data collected by The Times shows that about 3.5 million Californians, about 7.2% of the population, received a vaccine dose as of Monday.