By 
Spencer Custodio |
While Orange County’s Latino community has so far received only 11% of the coronavirus vaccines, provincial officials said the true number and demographics of people vaccinated are pretty up in the air at this point.
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At the public meeting of OC Supervisors on Tuesday, Supervisor Don Wagner asked questions about a Voice of OC article published yesterday, which showed that San Diego County had been vaccinated at about twice the rate as OC.
According to Orange County’s vaccine detection, about 242,000 people out of the approximately 3.2 million residents received at least one dose of the two-part vaccine – about 7.5% of the country’s population. A total of 288,000 shots were fired.
OC’s tracker is updated weekly and was updated last Thursday.
San Diego County Vaccine Detection, which is updated daily, does not provide information on how many residents the province has vaccinated out of the approximately 3.3 million people living there, but it does state that approximately 14.1% of the province’s population has at least one of the 503,000 shots received.
Director and health officer of the OC health care, dr. Clayton Chau, said that the rate of Orange County is higher after a recent influx of vaccinations.
“About a week ago on Sunday, there were more than 300,000 people in Orange County who received the vaccine,” Chau told Wagner. “More than 10%, for sure.”
Wagner said he wants to clarify the vaccine data in public to avoid confusion.
‘Why are we under San Diego? What can we do to fix it? Or is it just a matter of resources? He said.
Chau said San Diego County has more health workers than OC, which initially preloaded vaccine numbers.
That began to change after state guidelines extended the vaccinations to everyone 65 years and older, he said.
“So gradually we saw that we still had a few thousand assignments to us, and San Diego had a few less thousands,” Chau said. “If there is a lot of vaccination, it will all be a big point.”
Nearly 16% of the vaccines in San Diego County are to the Latino community and 2.1% to the Black community, compared to 11% and 1% in OC respectively, according to the provinces’ vaccination trackers.
Chau told Wagner the current vaccination numbers are still unreliable.
‘There is no right or wrong, supervisor. “Because the data is very confusing,” Chau said. “Everyone is trying our best to reconcile our numbers. We believe – Orange County is not alone – most provinces believe that the number reported in the state system is incorrect, it is not reported. ”
The confusion about who exactly is vaccinated comes because government officials are launching their own registration vaccination website, MyTurn.
It is unclear whether data collected from OC’s vaccine app and website, Othena, may be able to link into the state system.
Chau said he met with the secretary of the state agency for health and human services, dr. Mark Ghaly, talked about the issue.
‘I told him I had enrolled more than 600,000 elderly people for Othena. I’m not going to ask them to sign up for MyTurn again. So you need to find a way to integrate and work together. ”
Meanwhile, provincial supervisors and officials are urging the state to provide zip code information so the health care agency can determine where vaccines are going, and assign doses to the residents hardest hit.
“We are not getting zip codes and other data that we need to have at the local level to determine our plan to carry out vaccinations to vulnerable populations,” said Lisa Bartlett, supervisor.
Chau said the best information about the local app is available.
‘90% of people who received the vaccine therefore do not have a postcode. “So we are now in talks with the state about what happened there,” Chau said. “The only correct data system we can look at is Othena.”
Wagner said he is ready to reassign vaccines to the areas hardest hit in OC.
“I am supportive that we are generally transferring resources to the people in the country who are hardest hit,” Wagner said. “Because science tells me it’s where it’s.”
The distribution system is a further composition of vaccines.
Hospitals receive about 80% of the vaccines and the province gets the remaining 20% to use at supersites or smaller vaccination programs.
‘It seems to me that perhaps our own outreach is not aimed at where it can be. We keep saying ‘Go talk to your healthcare provider’ But that’s not a very good direction. If 80% of the vaccine is sitting somewhere and we are only promoting our 20%, there is something wrong in the messages. I think more information about where they get vaccinated, or how people can access this other 80%, is something we need to do, ”said Doug Chaffee, supervisor.
Chau said health agency officials at every hospital that distributes vaccines should contact to get accurate vaccination numbers.
Part of the effort is to make sure all vaccines are placed in people’s arms within a week of receiving the doses, otherwise government officials will reallocate the vaccines, Chau said.
Santa Ana city councilors are calling on provincial officials to set up vaccination stations in the hard-hit city.
In a letter to Andrew Do, chairman of the supervisors, Vicente Sarmiento, mayor of Santa Ana, said the city is ready to roll as soon as they get vaccinated.
“On behalf of the City of Santa Ana, I am writing to you today to express my concern that our city, one of Orange County’s worst-hit communities during the current pandemic, is not receiving adequate COVID-19 vaccines for its residents. “We are particularly concerned about the City’s seniors and non- or restricted English speakers who have been excessively affected by the Coronavirus pandemic,” Sarmiento said in a letter dated February 4.
The city already has funding and potential vaccination sites, he said.
‘The city council has set aside money, as well as securing potential premises and staff to help with the delivery of vaccines. We are confident that with our help we can help the country to improve its standard for health equality, ”Sarmiento said.
Do said they are building a site at Santa Ana College, and the province is working with OCTA and Abrazar, a community organization in Westminster that aims to help care for the most vulnerable elderly in OC.
Do said the partnerships are needed “to provide free transport to the elderly who cannot get to the pods because that is part of the problems people face.”
Officials also plan to set up a vaccination site at Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove.
“We do know that our ethnic groups that are part of Catholic families are very hesitant about vaccines,” Chau said. We are in talks with Christ Cathedral to set up a medium pod there. ”
The Vatican is appealing to people to get the vaccine.
“All vaccinations that are recognized as clinically safe and effective can be used with a clear conscience knowing that the use of such vaccines is not a formal collaboration with the abortion from which the cells used to produce the vaccines,” said the Vatican in a December statement.
Vatican officials said the coronavirus vaccines were in the ‘general interest’.
“Whatever the case, from an ethical point of view, the morality of vaccination depends not only on the duty to protect your own health but also on the duty to pursue the common good. “In the absence of other means to stop or even prevent the epidemic, the general benefit may be vaccination, especially to protect the weakest and most vulnerable,” the statement said.
While officials are trying to get accurate information about the distribution of vaccines, the hospitalizations of OC continue to decline.
According to Tuesday, 1,058 people were admitted to hospital, including 324 in intensive care units Healthcare Agency.
Yet deaths continue to increase.
The virus has now killed 3,416 people, including 33 new deaths reported Tuesday.
Newly reported deaths can last for weeks due to delays.
Since February began, the health care agency has reported 307 new deaths.
The virus has killed more than five times the annual average flu.
It is also more deadly than heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and stroke do annually.
In that context, Orange County has averaged about 20,000 deaths a year since 2016, including 543 annual flu deaths, according to health status data.
According to the state’s death statistics, cancer kills more than 4,600 people, heart disease kills more than 2,800, more than 1,400 die as a result of Alzheimer’s disease and strokes kill more than 1,300 people.
According to Orange County, Orange County has already exceeded its annual average of 20,000 deaths, with 23,883 people in December. available state data.
According to Chau, the greatest risk of being killed by the virus is the elderly, increasingly vaccinated.
“We vaccinated more than 100,000 individuals who are 65 years and older,” Chau said.
But they need to focus on the areas hardest hit before they can expand the vaccine for vaccine, Chau said.
“The zip codes in Anaheim, Santa Ana and Garden Grove will mainly die to COVID if they get it,” Chau said, adding officials should “pay attention to vaccinating our seniors in those areas.” And there is only a larger Latino population in these areas. ‘
For more information on the COVID-19 vaccine in Orange County, visit our Voice or OC information sheet: http://bit.ly/occovidvaccine.
Here is the latest information on virus numbers in Orange County:
Infections | Hospitalizations and deaths | City-by-city data | Demographics
Spencer Custodio is a reporter for Voice of OC. You can reach him at [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @SpencerCustodio