It was a weekend of frustration and confusion for many California residents 65 and older trying to figure out how to get the coronavirus vaccine.
The state announced last week that it was opening vaccinations for older people. But it soon became clear that the shots would be partially missed in many provinces, as there were still many medical workers and first reactions ahead of them.
Some people aged 65 and over did get vaccinated at stores where supplies were available. But many others did not find a place to make appointments.
This is how things are in Southern California:
Los angeles county
The provincial department of public health on Saturday issued a broad call to licensed health professionals – including medical doctors, doctors of osteopathy, medical assistants, nurses, licensed occupational nurses, dentists and pharmacists voluntary to vaccinate other health workers during unpaid ten-hour shifts at five “mega” distribution sites.
The sites are expected to open Tuesday at the Pomona Fairplex, the Forum in Inglewood, Northern States, Calridge, the LA County Office of Education in Downey and Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, with appointments available each day through Feb. 14. , the country said. .
In addition, the city’s Dodger Stadium’s vaccine started administering doses on Friday.
As of Thursday, health workers in LA County had received more than 279,000 doses of vaccine, including more than 219,000 first doses and more than 60,000 second doses, officials said, but they estimate about 450,000 health workers still need to be vaccinated.
Public health officials said they expected all qualifying health workers to receive their first dose in the next two weeks, and that they would be able to go to the next phase of vaccinations in early February. Those eligible for the next phase include people aged 65 and over, as well as those who work in education, childcare, emergency services or food and agriculture and are exposed to the risk.
Dr. Paul Simon, chief science officer in LA County, told a news conference on Friday that staff at the five mass vaccination centers being launched in the country will be trained to track the flow of traffic on the site and only the required number open vials. .
Each vial contains about five or six doses of vaccine. Once opened, the use-it-or-lose-it time frame is reduced to about six hours.
In the event of a surplus of vaccines, Simon said staff are being instructed to reach out within local communities to first offer the doses to the most vulnerable.
“We want to prioritize the higher risk groups,” he said.
The remaining vaccine can also be administered to on-site volunteers or others in the community to make use of all doses.
“No vaccines are thrown out,” Simon said. ‘There are isolated reports that some vaccines are lost at the end of the day. … It’s tragic. We do not want this to happen. We have protocols to try to prevent this. But there are definitely no amounts of vaccine lost. ”
Long Beach, which has its own Department of Public Health, moved on to the next phase of vaccinations on Friday, with Mayor Robert Garcia and other critical employees in the city receiving the vaccine. Others who are just eligible include police officers and 65-year-olds and older.
And this weekend, some older adults were vaccinated in Long Beach.
It came after the city vaccinated about 15,000 health workers and residents of long-term care facilities, Garcia said in a news release.
This week Long Beach opens clinics to vaccinate grocery workers and next week scheduled clinics to vaccinate educators.
Orange county
Orange County has opened vaccinations for residents 65 and older and first responders working in high-risk communities, as well as health workers.
The province opened a large-scale vaccine distribution center at Disneyland last week, saying it plans to eventually open four others. But the number of people trying to make an appointment quickly overloaded the system, provincial supervisor Andrew Do said last week. He encouraged people to keep trying.
The vaccination, along with two smaller ones, was overwhelmed earlier this week by people who showed up without appointments, which led to them effectively switching off for a while on Tuesday, the country said.
The platform for planning new appointments, Othena.com, is regularly updated to address technical issues, said Jessica Good, public information manager of the province’s health department.
More than 256,000 people have registered on the site since Saturday – an average of 12,000 registrations per hour – and more than 30,000 of them have been vaccinated, she said. Good added that more appointments would be available as the country received more vaccine.
Orange County has about 450,000 residents who are 65 or older, plus 250,000 critics and health workers and first responders, but so far only 170,000 doses have been allocated, Good said. Of that, 80% went to hospitals and major health care providers, she said.
Domestic Empire
Other counties, including Riverside, have also begun vaccinating 65 or older and essential workers in certain sectors.
But there are reports that appointments were difficult to obtain.
Around 4 p.m. Wednesday, Riverside County opened 5,600 appointments for vaccination clinics taking place Thursday through Sunday at Corona High School, Heritage High School in Menifee, San Gorgonio Middle School in Beaumont, Indio Fair and Diamond Stadium in Elsinore -more. The Diamond Stadium Clinic was exclusively for people 65 years or older.
Spokeswoman Brooke Federico said all the appointments were discussed at 7 p.m.
On Friday, the country made another 11,000 appointments available until Jan. 22, and the places filled up in about two hours, she said.
The province also said it had received just enough vaccine from the state to cover the clinics operating over the weekend.
“As of now, we have 14,346 doses in our hands as public health, and that’s just enough to go through the vaccine clinics we planned on Sunday,” Kim Saruwatari, director of public health in Riverside County, said on Friday at a lively meeting with provincial officials. “And by the end of Sunday, we should be vaccinated as a public health department.”
An additional 100 479 doses were administered or sent to the healthcare providers to be administered over the next few days. In contrast, the province estimates that more than 700,000 residents are currently eligible to receive the vaccine.
Saruwatari said the province usually sent 35,000 to 40,000 doses weekly, but the award was not exact or regular.
“And so this is one of the challenges that makes planning very difficult,” she said. “We do not know when the vaccine will arrive with certainty, and we do not know how much we will get at any given time with any degree of certainty.”
San diego county
Eligible for vaccines in San Diego County last week. On the other hand, the offer does not.
The province has focused on vaccinating the 620,000 health workers and residents of nursing homes who fall into the state’s vaccination level with the highest priority. New state and federal guidelines mean that nearly 500,000 San Diegans 65 or older are also eligible for a vaccine – if they accept that their healthcare provider has the doses.
This led to great confusion. A Ralphs spokesman told the San Diego Union-Tribune on Thursday that the supermarket chain is receiving the green light to vaccinate residents 65 and older at pharmacies, and that interested parties can sign up online for appointments.
Dr. Linh Lee, director of pharmacy, health and wellness at Ralphs, explained Friday that this is not accurate. Vaccination for elderly patients began on Wednesday and stopped quickly.
“There’s a lot of confusion,” Lee said. “Patients don’t know what to do.”
Healthcare systems are also struggling, with systems like Scripps, Sharp and Kaiser Permanente saying they do not yet have enough vaccine to immunize patients.
UCSD Health, which vaccinated 120 elderly patients on Thursday, is also concerned about its offer. According to Dr Marlene Millen, the health system has about 120,000 patients aged 65 or older, and often do not know when it will be vaccinated up to a day or two ahead of time.
“It would be nice to be consistent and make plans,” Millen said.
Jonathan Wosen of the San Diego Union Tribune contributed to this report.