Californians over the age of 65 are getting more vaccination options because Sutter Health and Santa Clara County have announced that people in that age group can sign up for shots.
Sutter patients 65 and older in Northern California can now plan for coronavirus vaccination.
People can sign up via Sutter’s online patient portal, called My Health Online, or call (844) -987-6115.
“By expanding the capacity, we can continue to use as many vaccines as possible for eligible patients, as the offer allows,” Sutter said.
Separately, health officials in Santa Clara County announced Thursday that all residents of the province age 65 and older can be vaccinated, regardless of their health care provider or insurance.
Prior to Thursday, various healthcare providers working in the country set different age criteria, with major providers such as Kaiser Permanente and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation restricting shots to healthcare workers and residents aged 75 and older. The province has also previously required patients from the healthcare systems to receive only the vaccine through their providers; now they can alternatively receive the vaccine through the country.
“Our effort to get more and more people vaccinated requires simplicity and clarity, and to this day we have honestly had too little,” said supervisor Joe Simitian. He added: ‘When we say we’re all in this together, we must mean it. We need to provide access to the vaccine, and that access cannot depend on who your healthcare provider is, or the number of vaccines they accidentally received in a week. ”
The announcement comes days after Kaiser Permanente said he had to cancel more than 5,000 vaccine appointments at Santa Clara Medical Center after not receiving enough vaccine doses to fulfill the appointment.
The change of Santa Clara County takes effect immediately.
But the provision of vaccines remains a constant problem, health officials said. As of Thursday, only about 35% of residents 75 years and older have been vaccinated, said Dr Jeffrey Smith, chief executive. About 28% of residents over 65 received a shot.
“The supply is definitely an issue,” Smith said. About 6000 doses are delivered daily from Monday to Friday in the country, and on weekends about 1000 per day. The country wants to expand the number to 15,000 a day.
“In the last three weeks, it has become clear by looking at the numbers and talking to the other health systems, that the entities in several provinces have not received adequate doses to care for their patients,” Smith said. ‘To tell the truth, Kaiser was, I would say, considerably short. … So when we saw that Kaiser had to cancel emergency clinics, we had to ask ourselves, ‘How can we fix this? How can we best intervene? ‘”
Officials said nearly 1,500 people in the country died from the virus.
Michael Williams is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @michaeldamianw