As thousands of people in Santa Clara County scour websites daily looking for a coveted COVID vaccination appointment, it was a shocking revelation that in just five days more than 4,000 people with confirmed appointments failed to show up to take their chance.
About 10% of vaccination appointments made at county-run sites are not shows, which is why there were about 300 additional vaccines at the Santa Clara County Fairground on Saturday that had already thawed and were due to expire the next day.
Dozens of Santa Clara County employees crawled to the San Jose exhibition grounds on Saturday after receiving phone calls and emails that they could potentially get a COVID vaccine at the last minute.
A few open vaccination sites at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds led to last-minute vaccines for those standing by. Ian Cull reports.
County Public Defender Brett Hammond got the shot.
“I’m excited,” he said. “My mother lives ten minutes away and I haven’t been able to hug her for a year. So I can reunite with my family, but I don’t think it has to come to me being warned at 4pm on Saturday that there are extra doses. I think public defenders should get it because they have so much exposure. “
The province said that due to an increase in the number of people who did not show up for their COVID vaccine appointments, it had the extra doses, so it contacted the public and asked district workers to come and get a vaccine so they would not be lost.
On Monday, NBC Bay Area learned how big the no-show problem is at county-run venues, including Levi’s Stadium.
From 8 to 12 February, no fewer than 4,517 people did not show up for their appointments.
The county said it doesn’t know why there are so many no-shows. One possibility is that people make multiple appointments for fear that one could be canceled.
The last-minute vaccine residue at the fair meant that some district employees who were not really eligible were given a vaccine.
The director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics Dr. David Magnus said the province should plan better to ensure vaccines are distributed fairly.
“Having a waiting list and a plan to mitigate the problem so you don’t have good doses and little time to deal with them,” said Magnus.
The good news is, the county said no vaccines were being wasted, despite the high number of no-shows.