- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
Public Health officer discusses challenges with vaccine rollout
That’s what Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace told the Board of Supervisors during a special Tuesday morning meeting and the Lakeport City Council at its Tuesday evening meeting.
On Tuesday, Lake County’s COVID-19 cases had risen to 2,612 – nearly 200 new cases since Friday – with two new deaths reported, bringing total deaths to 30.
Pace said Lake County is continuing to have widespread transmission of the virus.
“There's so much virus out in the community right now that you will be in contact with it if you're out and about,” he told the council.
Last week, Lake County recorded the highest new case numbers than it ever has, and this week it’s on pace to do the same, he said.
Public Health records showed that, on Tuesday, the cases had risen by 356 over the previous week.
Both of the county’s hospitals are pretty full, with the eight local intensive care unit beds mostly filled with COVID-19 patients, Pace reported.
Pace noted that, overall, the state’s case and hospitalization numbers are starting to flatten out, with the case surge following Christmas and New Year’s not turning out to be as bad as previously thought.
However, in Lake County, the surge isn’t yet flattening out, although Pace expects to turn the corner in the next week or two.
“Certainly we are often lagging a little behind the rest of California because of our rural nature,” Pace told the council.
He told both the board and the council that Lake County currently is in the most challenging part of the pandemic. Over the next two to three weeks he expects to see the results of the surge include more hospitalizations, which usually follow case increases by a few weeks.
As case numbers continue to rise and vaccinations are still rolling out, Pace encouraged people to continue to lay low and have as little public contact as possible.
Emphasis on vaccinations
In his appearances before the county and city leaders, Pace focused most on the process of rolling out the vaccinations.
Since Lake County received its initial doses of vaccines a month ago, Pace said between 1,500 and 2,000 people have been vaccinated. He said Public Health plans to soon start reporting on vaccination numbers.
Pace said the county currently is getting, at most, about 400 doses of vaccine a week and is focusing on administering those doses before receiving the next shipment.
He said the vaccine supply is extremely limited. While thousands of local residents want it – he said his email inbox is full of messages every day from people seeking to get the vaccine – Public Health is not receiving enough to meet the demand.
Based on the current supply – which the state is providing to the county based on an algorithm – Pace estimated it could take until the end of 2022 to vaccinate half of Lake County’s population, which tops 64,000.
He said there is a lot of frustration in the community because of the speed of vaccinations. “I don’t blame people. It’s very frustrating for me, too.”
The two hospitals and Lake County Tribal Health are getting separate supplies of the vaccine. “Nobody’s getting nearly enough to do what they need to do,” he said.
Pharmacies are supposed to be getting their own doses soon as well, Pace said.
The county recently received a shipment of 400 doses of the Moderna vaccine. Before it could open the shipment, Pace said the state notified the county not to use those doses as they are concerned that they are from a batch that is connected to allergic reactions.
Meantime, the state is trying to figure out what to do with that suspect batch. “So at this point we're just holding on to it,” with no replacement doses for it yet, Pace said.
Based on state guidelines, Pace said Public Health focused its initial efforts on vaccinating health care workers. It’s now focusing on those aged 65 and above, and teachers and school staff so schools can reopen.
Pace said the best way for seniors to get in line for the vaccine is to contact their medical providers. Public Health also had asked senior centers to do outreach to vulnerable seniors. The centers, in turn, have been overwhelmed with calls from people wanting to be vaccinated.
He told the supervisors that the vaccine rollout is complicated, frustrating “and very imperfect,” adding he didn’t have a good solution for it yet.
Later, he told the council that the rollout has been “very chaotic,” and the situation isn’t yet under control.
He said the state may be changing its guidelines for distributions in the coming weeks and loosening up its vaccine release.
Lakeport City Councilman Michael Froio noted that, two months ago, pharmaceutical companies said they would be putting out enough of the vaccine. He asked Pace where the logjam was.
“That is the million dollar question right now,” said Pace.
The state is saying it doesn’t have enough of the vaccine. “If you look around the country everyone is having the same problem,” Pace added.
Earlier this week, it was reported that there is no federal vaccine stockpile as the federal government had told governors.
Froio asked Pace if Public Health is holding back enough vaccine for the second doses, and Pace said yes, adding that the state is considering changing its guidelines to push out more initial doses rather than holding the second doses in reserve.
Looking ahead
Pace said Public Health is currently doing stand up clinics for the seniors and teachers who have been given appointments through their current process. The clinics are running six days a week – three in Clearlake, three in Lakeport.
They’re also looking at getting some mobile vaccination sites to go to employers or agricultural workers. However, he said they don’t yet have the staff to do that.
“That’s ultimately where we hope to go with this,” he said.
Once they get more vaccine doses, Pace said Public Health will do mass vaccination clinics such as has been done for flu shots through events like the Heroes of Health and Safety Fair.
While Pace hopes the vaccine supply will soon open up significantly, he said state officials are “not really telling us” if and when that will happen.
“This is going to be a big, long term rollout, I think, over months, and we’ll need a lot of people and a lot of coordination to get these pieces in place in a good way,” he told the supervisors.
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