California’s working groups overseeing the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines are discussing potentially making the vaccine available to everyone age 65 and older, the state’s Health and Human Services Secretary said Tuesday.
As of Monday, 816,673 coronavirus vaccine doses have been administered to health care workers and nursing home staff and residents, according to state officials.
While the state is rolling out vaccine doses in phases, targeting the most at-risk demographics first, new guidance Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encouraged states to begin vaccinating everyone age 65 and up rather than segmenting them depending on whether they have underlying medical conditions.
“We believe that having more vaccine, inviting more to be vaccinated will allow California to go faster and quicker through our population and get that vaccine out of our freezers and into our populations to get that protection,” HHS Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly.
Roughly 15 percent of the state’s population is older than 65, according to 2019 population estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Ghaly noted that the state’s vaccination rollout has been somewhat tempered so far due to a general lack of available doses as well as a limited number of medical professionals licensed to administer vaccine doses.
Both of those are expected to change in the coming days, however, with state and local public health officials collaborating to establish large-scale drive-thru coronavirus vaccination sites at sports stadiums like Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and the Oakland Coliseum as well as Cal Expo in Sacramento and Disneyland.
In addition, the state is recruiting additional medical practitioners such as pharmacists and dentists as well as the National Guard to increase the administration of vaccine doses.
Prior to the new CDC guidance, the state planned to expand its vaccination pool this month to people age 75 and older as well as education and child care, emergency services, food and agriculture workers.
Those groups are still expected to begin receiving vaccine doses in the coming weeks in addition to those over 65, assuming the state’s vaccine distribution working group expands the vaccination pool.
To date, nearly 2.5 million vaccine doses have been shipped to California’s local health departments and health care systems, according to state officials.
Ghaly said that figure is still well behind what the state had hoped for by now.
“The truth is, with such limited supply of vaccine and little bit coming into the state, we continue to look at ways that our structure allows us to get vaccine out to those populations as quickly as possible while still allowing us to, unimpeded, finish the vaccine that we’ve already received,” Ghaly said.
According to Ghaly, in addition to the more than 800,000 doses administered, roughly 99,000 state residents have received both doses of the vaccine required to build immunity.
As someone that mostly complains about California policy, I’ll say good job on this policy change. Age is the single largest correlation with Covid mortality, and should be the primary driver for vaccine targeting. And drafting everyone that can safely give the vaccine is also good policy.
So put it on your calendar, it’s an atta-boy for California from the Wage Slave
About time, good decision
The failure to quickly ramp-up the vaccination rate in California is not due to a lack of personnel capable of administering them. Other states have used CVS, Rite-Aid, etc…and I’ll bet the same folks from the County who shove a swab up my mom’s nose each week are able to give someone a vaccination.
The bin Lyin’ family is evidently quite large! This guy is probably a long-lost cousin.
When they start vaccinating front line workers how do they know who you are.
Call CDC and ask them how they verify front line workers.
Sadly I know of 2 people that simply used a healthcare letterhead and have inserted names of relatives for authorization although they are not in any healthcare fields.
Imagine cheating the system to take a barely studied, rammed-through-the-system experimented MRNA “vaccine.”
Finally a ray of common sense.
By the way… Kaiser could have easily done a million by now if they were given the vaccine. In Martinez they are doing eight at a time with drive up flu shots. All their facilities were set up in the past to give flu shots. I’m sure 10,000 a day between all their sites would be a walk in the park for them.
65 and over, let’s start tomorrow morning.
Does anyone know if you will have a choice between the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, and whether the Oxford vaccine will be an available option? We have a family member with serious allergies (carries an epipen) so we are worried about the mRNA vaccines for him.
BORbeliever – Currently, no choice as to which vaccine you get. Perhaps this will change for people at the end of the vaccine priority list, or when more vaccine doses are available.
@Mary Fouts, Thank you so much for this information!
Has anyone heard that DVC is a possible vaccination site? I guess it’s too early for the county to have details worked out and posted on their web site.
Fine but how many vaccines are we actually getting?
We are in the FIRST MAJOR pandemic in over 100 years. Good job on this choice. When we know better, we do better. We are all learning as we go along with this thing.
Earlier this week it was reported CA has only given 1/4 of the vaccines they have been sent. Last week Newsom advised CA was joining the Federal plan to distribute through CVS and other pharmacies. Believe that was even reported here.
Where do I go to get mine? I’m 66 and my husband is 70
There should/could be vaccine stations in front of post offices, grocery stores, and large retailers?
It seems so simple to just do this!
It makes my blood boil that inmates have received the vaccine in California but my 75 year old parents with health conditions have been told they can get a vaccine until late February. Date tbd. I’m a first responder and my department or union have not told us when we will be getting ours? I haven’t seen my parents this whole time because I come into contact with the public daily. Infuriating on our states poor planning.
Hubby and I getting first injections today 🙂
I turn 65 in May. Can I be considered in the 65 and up age range?
I am 90
Where do I get the vaccine
When is Kaiser going to start giving vaccines? You would think as big as Kaiser is, they would be one of the the first to administer the vaccine.
A time tested way to create demand for a product is by feigning scarcity do that product.
I am not sure how they have opened it up to 70 and older but still have not touched many of those that need it first (over 80 with existing health conditions). I know of dialysis centers whose patients have not received it, yet some Kaiser employees (not Dr. or Nurses) that are working remotely (nonessential) that received it 2 weeks ago. Kaiser is doing a terrible job. When you ask your Dr anything about the vaccine, they send you a generic response telling you to visit the County Health Department website for the phased Tiers. Kaiser is only giving it to their employees, many who are working from home and never even see the hospital or a patient during Covid. Get it together CA and Kaiser you should be ashamed.