Kaiser Permanente has administered more coronavirus vaccinations to residents of Sonoma County than any other provider, according to new data released by the county this week that provides unprecedented details about the two-month-old campaign to inoculate county residents against the deadly virus.
As of Wednesday, 76,936 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccine have been administered to residents of Sonoma County, the equivalent of one dose for 15.4% of the total population. The county and its partners have provided vaccine to a higher proportion of its residents than nine other California counties that are most similar in size, noted county chief vaccination officer Dr. Urmila Shende on Wednesday evening.
“So with regard to many different counties in California, we’re doing very, very well,” Shende said. “It’s a bumpy road, it doesn’t feel like that every day. But we are making progress, and we are administering doses more quickly than in other countries of our size. “
However, most adjacent counties continue to outnumber Sonoma County in vaccinating their populations. Napa (19.0%), Marin (18.2%), and Mendocino (17.1%) have all delivered more doses per capita. Lake County (12.3%) yielded less.
Overall, Sonoma County has the 12th highest vaccination rate of the state’s 58 counties, according to data collected by the State Department of Public Health.
The data reveals new insights about the vaccination campaign, which began on Dec. 14 with primary health care workers and counselors, and then expanded to seniors over 75 on Jan. 27. This week, teachers working with young students were eligible. with people aged 70 to 74.
Just over 1 in 10 residents who received the vaccine got their chance outside Sonoma County, mostly health workers commuting to work in nearby counties.
How the distribution of vaccines differs per provider
Kaiser, the province’s largest health care provider, has so far administered more vaccinations than any other entity, with nearly 17,000 shots to the guns. Second, there was a group of companies that partnered to manage the county-launched sites, including the Sonoma County Medical Association, DEMA Consulting, and OptumServe. Together they have administered just over 12,000 doses.
The second largest vaccine administrators were Sutter Health (approximately 10,050 doses), out-of-county suppliers (somewhere close to 8,000), CVS Pharmacy (over 5,000), Safeway (nearly 4,000), and St. Hospitals Santa Rosa Memorial and Petaluma Valley ( right about 3,000).
Not all of them go through their vaccine bottles at the same rate according to the data.
Of the six hospitals in Sonoma County, Kaiser Santa Rosa administered approximately 95% of the received doses, Petaluma Valley Hospital 84% and Sonoma Valley Hospital 59%. Santa Rosa Memorial, the county’s largest hospital, had administered only 55% of the doses received. Sutter Santa Rosa did not rate the doses received, and the Healdsburg District Hospital line showed that more doses went into the arms (1094) than in the facility (980), further evidence of the erratic nature of current vaccination data .
The hospital in Healdsburg may have been able to get extra doses from the vials, which is possible with the right type of needle, said Kate Pack, the county’s chief epidemiologist. Other discrepancies in the data may stem from confusion about what the county is asking health care providers, she said.
St. Joseph Health, Memorial Hospital’s parent company, did not respond to a request for comment about the usage rate at Santa Rosa Hospital.
The difficulty for Sutter Health in tracking its allocation is that as a multi-country entity, it often shares available doses among its campuses based on daily demand, said Erin Neal, the provider’s principal administrator in the Bay Area.
“The allocation comes from the state system,” explained Neal. “We get a certain amount for Sutter, and while we set up our appointments and vaccination clinics, it is assigned to us in Sonoma County. So I apologize for not having a clear answer to that question. But we advocate weekly for as much as we can get based on our population. “
It remained unclear why Kaiser and St. Joseph were able to overcome similar reporting challenges.
Who gets vaccines first
In addition to the charts on the distribution of the providers, the province also shared data on the demographics and geographic payment of vaccinations.
Latino residents have received only 11% of the doses so far, although they make up 27.3% of the population. Meanwhile, about 61.5% of all doses have gone to women, compared with 38.5% to men. The numbers reflect the earliest emphasis of the vaccination effort, which was aimed at primary care health workers, Pack said.
The splitting up of vaccinations by residents’ postal codes showed great inequality. The zip code with the highest percentage of vaccinated residents was 95444 in Graton, namely 26%. The lowest was 95412 in Annapolis, about 4%.
The figures provided Wednesday are most relevant as they relate to Sonoma County’s descent through the various stages and levels of California’s vaccination priority system. Officials said the county has now immunized about 45% of the over-75s, a proportion they deemed large enough to trigger a move to the 70-74 population this week.
People aged 65 to 69, who make up nearly 7% of the province’s population with about 34,000 people, are anxiously awaiting their turn. It will only come when the many vaccine suppliers, big and small, make their way through the older subgroups.
“I wish we could give you a specific date for ages 65 and over, but it depends on our overall stock level and how soon we can proceed with vaccination,” Shende said.
You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or [email protected]. On Twitter @Skinny_Post.