California will soon expand its list of people eligible for coronavirus vaccinations by an additional 4 million to 6 million people by adding the severely disabled and those with health conditions who are at high risk of infection and death, said Secretary of State of Public health Dr. Mark Ghaly Friday. .
Among those eligible on March 15 are people with certain cancer, heart, lung, and kidney conditions, as well as pregnant women, people with Down’s syndrome, organ transplant recipients, and severely obese. They join people 65 and older and people in high-risk job descriptions who were already eligible under the state plan.
California is plagued with vaccine shortages, and Ghaly couldn’t say how long it will take for the state to vaccinate the estimated 17 million to 19 million people who are eligible for the vaccine once the new additions are made.
“Without that crystal ball on the allotment it will be really hard to answer,” he said. The country’s most populous state can expect to receive at least 1 million doses per week in the coming weeks, Ghaly said.
Each of the current vaccines – Pfizer and Moderna – requires two doses for full effectiveness. So it takes 1 million shots to cover 500,000 people.
Judy Mark, the president of Disability Voices United, thanked the state for increasing vaccinations for people with disabilities, but said it should be immediate.
“The March 15 effective date may be too late for many people with disabilities who could die from COVID in the meantime,” she said in a statement.
Ghaly said the additional time is needed for the state to ramp up capacity. Some people with disabilities or certain health conditions will be more difficult to reach because they will need to be vaccinated at home, he said.
Gavin Newsom said the state recognizes that people with certain physical and intellectual disabilities are “uniquely vulnerable.”
“I want the disability community to know we’ve heard you, and we’re going to do more and better to provide access even with the scarcity,” he said while visiting a mass vaccination site in San Francisco.
California is coming out of the worst phase of the pandemic. New virus cases and hospitalizations have fallen dramatically over the past three weeks, and deaths over 3,500 per week have also started to decline, albeit more slowly.
The state began rolling out vaccines in December when the number of cases and hospitalizations exploded. Officials first focused on vaccinating people based on the risk level of their job. Health workers were the first and the state then added educators, farm workers and aid workers. People in long-term care facilities and people aged 65 and over are also eligible.
Once the state has gone through these groups, it plans to move to an age-based system rather than one based on a job description. The state has not yet fully developed a plan for the age-based criteria.
“We are in the process of determining what that age span will be and when that date will be triggered. It will be largely driven by vaccine delivery, ”said Ghaly.
The state decided to add people with disabilities and health problems of any age after criticizing that it could not protect those at higher risk of infection and death from COVID-19.
Still, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, the California surgeon general, said doctors should pass judgment and not get everyone vaccinated.
“It’s really crucial for providers to really get a fair amount of recognition for the scarce supply to ensure that those most at risk get access to the vaccine,” she said on KGO-TV Friday.
That won’t be easy for doctors, said Dr. Louise Aronson, a professor of geriatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.
“It’s going to be tough for patients and it’s going to be tough for clinicians, but the way we get through it is that we all prioritize the highest risk and stay a little more patient, which is one of the hardest. at this point in history, ”she said.
California has opened many massive vaccination centers in recent weeks, but these are not operating near full capacity due to vaccine shortages. The City of Los Angeles temporarily closed vaccination centers at Dodger Stadium and four other locations until supplies could be replenished.
“We are all frustrated. We know we could do a lot more if we had available doses,” said Dr. Paul Simon, LA County Chief Science Officer. He said the province could administer about 600,000 doses per week, but is getting about 200,000.
California has administered 5.5 million doses to date and more than 1 million people have received both.
Also on Friday, the state released data on the age, race, sex and province of the people vaccinated. It only pertains to health workers, long-term residents, and people 65 and older, meaning it does not accurately reflect the entire population of California, state officials said.
The incomplete data is just a piece of information that officials rely on when trying to distribute vaccines to the most vulnerable people in California. The state has not released a breakdown of vaccines by zip code, which can be used to measure whether people in disadvantaged neighborhoods are being vaccinated, but it did provide a demographic breakdown of vaccinations by county.
The data shows that nearly a third of vaccines went to Caucasians, nearly 16% to Latinos, more than 13% to Asian Americans, and less than 3% to black people. Of the rest, 14% went to people who identified as multiracial, 12% to those listed as “other” and the rest to “unknown.” The state relies on self-identification or data from health care providers.
Associated Press writers Janie Har in San Francisco and Amy Taxin in Orange County contributed.