The Santa Clara County public health system is on track to vaccinate 30,000 residents per week, officials said Friday.
The Santa Clara Valley Medical Center has set up five vaccination sites, including mass vaccination sites on Berger Drive and Santa Clara County Fairgrounds.
The Berger site has the capacity to vaccinate 1,300 people and the Fairgrounds can vaccinate 1,800 people per day.
Another vaccination site will open in Mountain View next week, and the county plans to open a third mass vaccination site with more capacity than the fairgrounds, said Dr. Jennifer Tong, associate chief medical officer at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.
“Our system alone vaccinated more than 3,000 people this Monday, more than 4,000 this week on Tuesday and Wednesday each, more than 5,000 yesterday, and we have more than 6,000 appointments scheduled today,” Tong said. “So we are accelerating very quickly.”
The County Health System alone has administered 32,352 first doses and 6,594 second doses to eligible health professionals and individuals 75 and older in the county as of Thursday.
But the biggest barrier to vaccinating more people is the supply of vaccines.
“We really need stable and predictable supply to predict our capacity and expand our capacity in the future,” Tong said.
County Counsel James Williams said the fault lies with the federal government, changing federal and state guidelines daily and then a lot of misinformation.
“For example, we learned a few days ago that the federal government is going to release stocks of vaccine that are being held for a second dose,” Williams said. “We learned this morning that no such stock exists.”
The other big problem is that vaccine distribution is fragmented, with no really organized plan in the county, Williams said.
Major multi-district health care systems like Kaiser Permanente get their vaccine allocations from the state – which Williams says is the “crux of the challenge” because the majority of the population is covered through those major health systems.
Federal agencies also direct themselves in vaccine distribution, and a federal program with Walgreens and CVS leads the distribution of vaccines to residents and staff in long-term care facilities.
A Jan. 7 public health order seeks to address that problem by requiring hospitals, clinics and all vaccine administrators to share information with the county and submit a vaccination plan by Feb. 1.
But the health order can only do so much because federal programs and agencies are not required to share information with the county, Williams said.
However, county officials such as supervisor Otto Lee are hopeful with a new administration: vaccination will be better.
“New President-elect Biden has spoken about 100 million vaccines in the first 100 days in office,” said Lee. “And we’ll hold him accountable for making sure that happens.”
In the meantime, as the county is experiencing its largest increase yet, officials are pleading with residents to follow health regulations, stay at home as much as possible, and avoid gatherings.
“We are finally feeling the impact of Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings,” said Lee. “This number is not going to drop unless we all work so hard to stay socially distant, wear masks, and unless absolutely necessary, please don’t go out and get together.”
For more information about vaccination in Santa Clara County, visit sccfreevax.org.