Scripps Health joined a select few San Diego County health systems on Tuesday that have begun administering the COVID-19 vaccine to residents 65 and older.
When California opened up vaccines outside of the Phase 1A group – critical health professionals, nursing home workers, and their patients – to anyone 65 and older, San Diego County public health officials were quick to admit they didn’t have enough vaccines for the expansion.
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But health care systems that have additional doses of the vaccine available can operate at their own pace, the province said. Scripps Health said on Tuesday they were one of them.
Scripps Health will begin administering the COVID-19 vaccine to patients 65 and older with an appointment starting Wednesday. Dr. Ghazala Sharieff, Chief Medical Officer for acute care, said within hours of the announcement that they had already scheduled 6,800 patients for appointments.
Patients will be notified through the MyScripps portal if they are eligible for the vaccine. Appointments will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis at selected clinics.
“Patients who are unable to get a vaccination appointment at these clinics will be notified when additional appointments become available,” the health group said. “Scripps patients are asked not to call their doctor’s office as they cannot schedule these vaccines.”
The health group said the doses that will be used for patients 65 and older were left over from their efforts to vaccinate their health workers – about 1,000 in total.
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For the 65+ group, no additional doses have yet been provided by the federal or local government. Sharieff said that by scheduling so many appointments, they “took a bit of a leap of faith” that the doses were coming through their government partnerships.
While Sharieff admits that 6,800 patients is a large number, there are still tens of thousands of patients in their system who are still anxiously awaiting the vaccine.
“I can’t get everyone right away, but it’s a start, so I just want to ask for some patience,” Sharieff said. “The fact that we are rolling this out as soon as possible is exciting. As soon as we get more vaccine, our clinics will open.”
UC San Diego Health has been the only other health system that can facilitate vaccinations for the over-65s as of Tuesday. They hoped to vaccinate about 500 patients per day in their facilities “in addition to the nearly 10,000 UC San Diego Health employees who have already received their first doses in Phase 1A”.
The health care system prioritized those with co-morbidities and those at serious risk of COVID-19 infection and contacted those patients directly.
Kaiser Permanente, on the other hand, was still only vaccinating health professionals and older caregivers and their patients due to their limited supply of vaccines.
“The recent extension of state authorization to individuals over the age of 65 has challenged the entire health system, including Kaiser Permanente,” a Kaiser spokesman said in a statement to NBC 7.
The hospital says they receive an average of 40,000 single doses of the vaccine per week for their entire system statewide, which is still only enough to accommodate the Phase 1A group.
The San Diego County Public Health System took steps to vaccinate the older population of the region, but was still unable to open up vaccinations to everyone 65 and older. On Monday, officials announced they would open their vaccination sites to people 75 and older, creating confusion at the large “Vaccination Super Center” in Petco Park.
The COVID-19 vaccines have been developed so quickly that they can only be described as a marvel of modern science. But actually getting those shots in the arms of Americans? Well that’s a different story. The US has conducted massive vaccinations in the past. But the complicated storage required for these new vaccines – coupled with poor planning – is causing vaccinations to get off to a slow start. NBCLX narrator Ngozi Ekeledo talks to experts about the four Ds that could get vaccine rollout back on track.
Officials said the move was prompted by a delay at the COVID-19 vaccination sites and efforts to vaccinate the people most at risk for complications from the coronavirus. San Diegans who fall into the eligible group and cannot get an appointment through their healthcare provider can make appointments here.
San Diego County said as more doses become available next month, the vaccinations will expand to more than 600,000 people in group stage 1B.