This Saturday, San Diego County will begin vaccinating police officers, teachers, farm workers and many others in an effort to boost immunity to the coronavirus.
All in all, 500,000 San Diegans who fall into the categories of emergency services; childcare and education; and food and agriculture are eligible for their shots.
Vaccination for some in these groups will be addressed through targeted efforts. For example, primary school teachers and staff will be immunized through a program led by the San Diego County Office of Education and the California Schools Voluntary Employees Benefits Association (VEBA), an organization that provides health benefits to school employees.
Vaccine dosages take precedence over school staff in districts that are open or plan to open. Within those districts, schools in zip codes most affected by the pandemic will be first in line.
Supervisor Nathan Fletcher says the county will reserve 20 percent of its vaccine supply for this program – twice as much as the state plans to set aside for educators.
“Our goal is to get those people vaccinated as soon as possible,” Fletcher said during the coronavirus briefing on Wednesday.
Although information about the program will be posted on vebavaccinates.com, provincial officials said primary school teachers and staff members do not need to schedule their own appointments as they are coordinated through their school districts.
Vaccinations for the county law enforcement officers will be handled with the help of Scripps Health, one of the two largest health systems in the region. And the San Diego firefighters go out into the fields to vaccinate farm workers.
All other San Diegans who fall into the soon-to-be eligible groups (eg, Supermarkets) will be able to book an appointment at one of the vaccine superstations or smaller locations in the region, with location and application information available at vaccination superstationsd.com.
But making an appointment will not be easy, as the number of eligible San Diegans will reduce the range of doses available in the region.
“The vaccination system and the appointment system will come under significant pressure,” said Fletcher. “As soon as we receive vaccines, we make agreements. And once we make them available for the next week or two weeks, they will likely be gone immediately. “
Supply uncertainty was one of the few constants during an ever-changing rollout. That’s true despite a promise by President Joe Biden to give states a running estimate of how much vaccine to expect in the next three weeks.
Apparently, that information is not being passed on to the county, which Fletcher says is lucky if he knows how much vaccine is coming in three days.
But he noted that vaccine manufacturers have said they will ramp up production, and doses delayed by winter storms are now pouring into the province.
There is another reason to expect the supply to increase. Friday, a panel of researchers will vote on whether or not the Food and Drug Administration should approve Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine.
If that happens, the first doses could arrive Monday, according to Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county public health officer. But she said the county does not know how many doses it would receive. And neither Wooten nor Fletcher have discussed exactly how the county will include a third coronavirus vaccine in the region’s rollout.
“There are ongoing discussions about how best to use the J&J vaccine in the context of others,” said Fletcher, referring to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. “But in general, the presence of the J&J vaccine will make it easier than more difficult.”
Unlike Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires a single dose. That could be useful at a time when about 330,000 San Diegans are waiting for their second dose of vaccine. In many cases, those appointments have been delayed due to delivery problems.
As vaccine rollouts progress, San Diego’s coronavirus statistics continue to improve. On Wednesday, the province reported 658 new corona virus infections; that’s 13 days in a row that new cases were under 1000. And the total number of San Diegans hospitalized with COVID-19 has dropped to 602, with 23 new hospitalizations. Twelve additional COVID-19 deaths bring the county’s total to 3,230.
At this rate, the county could resume high school outdoor sports by next week, rising from the state’s most restrictive reopening layer, the purple layer, to the next layer (red layer) in the coming weeks. That would allow restaurants and gyms to resume limited indoor activities, along with other gradual openings of the region’s economy.
But recent reports have raised concerns that new forms of the coronavirus could reverse hard-won progress in the region.
A study led by UC San Francisco researchers used genetic analysis to identify the viral variants present in 630 positive coronavirus tests and found that about half of the samples collected between January 10 and January 27 had mutations indicative of new “California” variants of the pathogen – a marked increase from 16 percent of samples analyzed in November.
The report has sparked fears that these variants, which appear to be more contagious than other types, will soon cause another wave of disease across the country.
When asked to comment on the report on Wednesday, Dr. Eric McDonald, medical director of the county’s epidemiology department, said genetic analysis conducted in San Diego County by Scripps Research estimates that between 30 percent and 40 percent of samples coming back locally appears to be caused by Californian variants.
But he also noted that it’s too early to say with certainty whether these home-grown versions really pose a greater threat.
He added that the overall number has continued to decline, even though the California variant was present during the recent December and January hospitalization spike.
“We have no evidence in San Diego that these variants are indeed more contagious or that they have higher morbidity and mortality rates,” said McDonald.
Kristian Andersen, Scripps Research’s molecular biologist whose team has sequenced thousands of coronavirus genomes in San Diego, said his concern remains B.1.1.7, a variant first spotted in the UK.
“Yes, the California variety is increasing – and is probably slightly more transferable than non-California varieties – but nowhere near as transferable as B.1.1.7.,” Andersen said in an email. “We expect B.1.1.7 to become dominant in the coming weeks – probably early to mid-March.
“It will probably take out the CA variant.”