As residents of more than 65 Bay Area residents experience delays, long waits and even cancellations of COVID-19 vaccination appointments, officials in Santa Clara County have moved to expand access to vaccines in both public and private hospital systems to implement to speed up.
As of Thursday, anyone in the age group living or working in the country can plan a vaccination appointment with any provider, regardless of their primary health insurance or service provider, Dr. Sara Cody, health officer, said at a news conference.
“Anyone 65 and older – no matter where you get medical care. You can register and care,” Cody said. ‘An Kaiser patient can come to the country. A Stanford patient can go to Kaiser. A rural patient can go to Stanford. It does not matter – if you are 65 years and older, we want you to be vaccinated. ”
The new policy aims to create a “no wrong door” system in which people can more easily navigate through a private and public vaccination room, and it comes just a day after a group of health officials in the Bay Area recommended that all health systems the 65 and older.
Earlier this week, Kaiser Permanente said it should cancel 750 vaccine appointments for South Bay residents aged 75 and older, and that about 4,500 appointments were originally planned from January 29 to February 5 for those aged 65 to 74. it faced unexpected shortages in the vaccine supply.
Because the province previously asked people to find vaccinations through their own provider – and with about half of the province’s nearly 2 million residents relying on Kaiser or Sutter Health – the shortages have left qualified residents disappointed, Joe Simitian said. , district superintendent, said. .
“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,” Simitian said. “We need to give every Santa Clara County resident access to the vaccine, in accordance with federal, state and local criteria, and we need to do it faster.”
The explosion of the vaccine has been in confusion for weeks. Last month, dozens of Phase 1B employees in Santa Clara County were vaccinated with extra doses, including some employees who are much younger than state guidelines dictate. Elsewhere, people cut doses by family or friends and shared links to sign-ups or health care trials.
Santa Clara officials, meanwhile, have said they want to vaccinate inferior populations and people of color, opening the vaccination stations in East San Jose and Gilroy, which have had high COVID-19 infections and death rates for months. Officials have not been able to give an explanation of the roll-out of vaccines according to race and ethnicity as of Thursday morning.
Staff writers Robert Salonga and Emily DeRuy contributed to this report.