Local health officials express frustration over vaccine stockpile issues
SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Calif. (KION) State and local health leaders are up in arms over a less than expected vaccine supply allocation after new reports revealed reserve doses from the federal government have already been distributed.
In Santa Cruz County, health officials have received almost 17,000 vaccination doses. They need to administer about 12,000 more to finish off all the tiers in Phase 1A. Health officials there say they are scrambling to fill the COVID-19 vaccine demand, but are limited by the supply they get.
The federal government initially planned to release the entire vaccine stockpile to the states instead of keeping a portion for second doses; it turns out, that stockpile has already been given out.
"We're only getting 200 doses next week in Santa Cruz County, which really creates some problems for us in planning clinics that we wanted to do next week," said Dr. David Ghilarducci, the deputy health officer for Santa Cruz County.
Counties only get a week's notice about how many new vaccine doses they will get and that makes planning very hard. With the recent addition of 65+ year olds to the Phase 1B batch, local health officials say it is going to be a lot harder to meet the demand.
"The addition of the 65+ group, while a very important group, does also kind of upset the careful planning we've done in the last couple of months to be prepared for this," said Dr. Ghilarducci.
"We have been, locally, at zero percent ICU capacity since Thanksgiving. That is highly, highly concerning. So one of the first goals of giving out vaccines is to work at the highest risk and highest stress on our systems first. And those are our hospitals," said Mimi Hall, the Santa Cruz County health director.
Officials also say the state database used to log the number of COVID-19 vaccinations is not functioning properly, making it difficult to nail down just how many people have been vaccinated in California.
Local health departments are also struggling with staffing issues.
"In Santa Cruz County, the health department is basically two doctors and five nurses that are handling all aspects of public health including our EMS system and all the other health issues that would normally come up," said Dr. Ghilarducci.
About 6,000 COVID-19 shots have been given out in Santa Cruz County. Experts say it takes 10 to 12 days for the vaccine to build up immunity. The first dose provides only about 50 percent protection from the coronavirus, so it is still important to follow COVID safety guidelines.
For now, health officials say it boils down to a matter of how quickly companies can crank out more vaccines for the rest of us.
CBS News is reporting that President-elect Joe Biden is planning to deploy the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard to help with COVID vaccine clinics across the country.
PREVIOUS ARTICLE: Santa Cruz County health officials are sharing their frustration over national COVID-19 vaccine stockpile issues.
Dr. David Ghilarducci told KION that adding people aged 65 and over has disrupted planning and increased the size of Phase 1b, and he says local health departments have not received support from the federal or state level.
According to Ghilarducci, four of the biggest issues they are facing include vaccine supply, a broken data system, changing phases and tiers and lack of staffing and funding.
A new federal policy was created to release second doses of vaccines held in reserve, but senior Trump administration officials say many of those doses have already been distributed.
Officials in Monterey County say they do not make vaccine plans until a shipment is ordered and on the way, so they do not anticipate an immediate impact in Monterey County.
KION's Josh Kristianto will have more tonight at 5 and 6 p.m.
