About 702,000 of the doses of California’s vaccines have been delayed due to a winter storm that paralyzed the Middle East, Govin Newsom said Friday.
The missing doses this week make up more than half of the state’s 1.2 million vaccination supplies. The delays mainly affect Modern vaccines. Newsom said he did not know when the delayed doses would arrive.
In the Bay Area, the outcome was canceled or delayed appointments.
Sutter Health has said it will reschedule the second-dose Moderna appointments due to storm delivery delays, and it has also suspended the suspension of new first-dose appointments due to supply constraints.
A spokesman for Kaiser Permanente said the delay in dispatch had an impact on the supply of vaccines and the company was reaching out to the patients involved to reschedule appointments.
Contra Costa County Health Services said Friday afternoon that one of its pharmacy partners should cancel nearly 500 first-dose appointments. Provincial spokesman Will Harper estimates that about 1,000 doses are still underway, but did not know how long it would be delayed.
Marine County Department of Health spokeswoman Laine Hendricks said the province is relocating up to 400 vaccine appointments this week, including two-dose appointments, which require a vaccination against Moderna. Affected people will be contacted by email with options to reschedule next week, Hendricks said. Second-dose Pfizer vaccinations and most first-dose appointments will continue.
Marin County has delayed scheduling of appointments for Feb. 22 to Feb. 27 due to the uncertain situation. Delays also affect the planning of appointments by other providers, including MarinHealth and Safeway.
In Alameda County, 3,000 doses of Moderna are delayed. The province has enough vaccines to continue with the site of counties this week and hopes to receive supplies next week.
Another 2,000 Modern doses never reached Napa County this week.
San Mateo County is expected to receive 14,200 doses of Moderna, but has not received information on when the consignment will arrive, and will adjust plans for vaccination clinics if necessary, said Preston Merchant, provincial spokesman.
In Santa Clara County, Modern vaccines that were expected to arrive this week were delayed, with no timeline on arrival. Suppliers have enough vaccine to cover appointments planned early next week, and more awards are expected by Tuesday.
The City College yard in San Francisco was reopened for second shots on Friday, and the mass vaccination center for the Moscone Center in San Francisco, which is run by the Kaiser, is closed this week due to limited supplies and will reopen on Thursday.
“The vaccine supply coming to San Francisco is limited, inconsistent, and unpredictable, making vaccine planning difficult,” the city’s COVID Command Center said.
San Francisco resident Alex Lau received an automatic call from Sutter Health on Friday afternoon that the appointment of his 86-year-old father for a second shot be postponed for two weeks.
“It was disappointing, but we’re still living our lives more or less the same – we’m not leaving the house,” Lau said, thankful it was at least his father’s second shot and not his first.
Nada Sanders, a professor of supply chain management at Northeastern University, said that although accidents can happen, supply chains must have emergencies to deal with the bad weather, as it is known in advance.
“It’s so predictable and it’s very frustrating,” Sanders said, adding, “Everything we have rests on this, and we’re refurbishing it.”
Once the winter storm delays are over, a boost to the vaccine is expected. Newsom said the state expects a modest increase each week in the allocation of vaccines from the federal government.
Chronicle staff author Michael Williams contributed to this report.
Mallory Moench is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @mallorymoench