Santa Clara County is ramping up vaccinations in an attempt to pass them off to health workers before moving on to the next group.
So far, the rollout across the Bay Area and the country has been slow, but the next phase is expected to be much faster.
Kevin Dizon is now one of more than 47,000 Santa Clara County health professionals who will receive his COVID-19 vaccination appointment card along with his first injection of the vaccine.
“I didn’t really think I could get it, I thought I was going to get to a later level and then they added the dental area,” Dizon said.
The state has extended Stage 1A eligibility to all types of health professionals, such as Dizon, who is a dental hygienist.
But so far, only about a third of the country’s health workers have been photographed.
Vaccinations will not spread to the next group until this group is complete, which should be in a few weeks.
Health care organizations in the Bay Area are already sending messages to members, including a mass email from Sutter Health.
Group 1B, which includes patients ages 65 to 74 and teachers, will soon be able to book vaccine appointments online, the report said.
Santa Clara County Public Health plans to open a second vaccination center, which could expand capacity to 6,000 injections per day.
Private groups such as Walgreens and CVS are added to that capacity.
“We’re talking about more, like private hospitals like Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Kaiser, they also administer their vaccines separately,” said Otto Lee, Santa Clara County supervisor.
But that expanded capacity all depends on the availability of the vaccines.
“The vaccines come in waves,” said Dr. Jennifer Tong of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. “We’re getting a bulk of 50 to 100,000 at a time, and one of our key factors in expanding the capacity further is whether or not we’ll have enough vaccine.”