About 100,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses are in freezers waiting to be administered in Santa Clara County, new data shows.
Santa Clara is one of the first counties to release COVID-19 data on how many doses go to each provider and how many are used.
Of all 280,000 doses providers received, more than 96,000 were unused on Thursday.
While larger medical providers such as Stanford Health and Kaiser Permanente have administered more than 70% of their doses, smaller providers seem to be struggling, the data shows.
North East Medical Services (NEMS) in San Jose, which specifically targets disadvantaged Asian communities, had the lowest level of injection with only 12% of their doses administered. They had almost 2,000 doses to wait.
Two other providers who also serve vulnerable minorities also seem to be struggling. Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI) administered 21% of his vaccine supply and had more than a thousand doses left. And Bay Area Community Health (BACH) controlled 22% of its supply and had nearly two thousand doses unused.
‘It’s been pretty crazy. There is also great hesitation in our population, ”said Dr. Kenneth Tai, NEMS Chief Medical Officer. Tai said his organization and other smaller healthcare providers and clinics face unique challenges in reaching some of the most vulnerable populations in our community.
“We literally got the vaccines last week. Only internally do we have to teach our staff how to fill out the questionnaire, how to inject, etc. Most of them work overtime, ”said Dr. Tai.
BACH sent our research unit an email stating that the unused doses are the result of:
- Extreme weather destroying some of their vaccine structures
- Many of their patients opt for the wait-and-see attitude
- Getting 75+ year old patients to make appointments is a challenge
- Most community clinics do not have scalable planning technology platforms
“Those in disadvantaged communities are most at risk of not receiving the vaccine on time,” said Graham Knaus of the California State Association of Counties. “We are redoubling our efforts to reach those communities in a system that is incredibly complex and changes day by day.”
Smaller providers, such as NEMS, said they delivered more doses than what is shown in the data. Currently, there is no unified vaccination reporting system by county, state, or federal, so some providers are forced to create their own workflows.
Our research unit has reached out to other counties to compare data, but Contra Costa, Alameda, San Mateo, and San Francisco counties have yet to release information based on providers.
“We’re doing our very best to get the vaccines into people’s arms, and we want to do the work,” said Dr. Tai.
Candice Nguyen is an investigative reporter at NBC Bay Area. To reach her about this story or others, email her [email protected].