According to a Thursday night update of Bloomberg’s COVID-19 vaccine detection, there is only one state in the country that does a worse job than California administering its available dose of COVID-19.
California currently ranks 49th out of 50 states with a usage rate of 27.5%, beating only Alabama, which is locked up in last place with a meager 21.2% usage rate. For reference, the national usage rate is 38.8%, which means that California lags behind the rest of the country’s double-digit pace.
The Golden State is in the same ballpark as Georgia (48th place with a usage rate of 28.0%) and Virginia (47th with a rate of 28.4%), and follows the other larger states dramatically. Of the six largest states in the country, California is the only one with a usage rate of less than 40.0%:
California 27.5% (49th)
-Texas 49.6% (eighth)
Florida 43.0% (23rd)
-New York 41.0% (26th)
-Pennsylvania 40.0% (27th)
-Illinois 43.2% (22nd)
The five states with the highest usage rates are West Virginia (78.6%), North Dakota (71.3%), South Dakota (61.4%), Rhode Island (57.2%) and Louisiana (54 , 4%).
Gavin Newsom, governor of California, announced Wednesday that his state allows individuals 65 and older to be vaccinated, but the implementation was far from smooth.
Provinces and health care providers are making the final call on who will be vaccinated, and some, including Los Angeles County – the state’s largest state – have rejected the governor’s announcement, saying only health workers can receive the vaccine for the time being, citing after a shortage.
“We are not done with our health workers yet,” said Barbara Ferrer, director of public health in LA County. “We have not yet heard from the state about the availability of vaccines and how they will be distributed.”
Meanwhile, Orange County has decided to allow residents 65 and older to book appointments on its new Disneyland super site, but its registration site has crashed due to huge demand.
Many provinces are asking the state for more doses before switching to the elderly. For example, Santa Clara County wants to start vaccinating those 75 and older, but after requesting 100,000 additional doses, it was said this week that it would only receive 6,000.