Vaccine update: California supply increases, but is still well below provider capacity
California’s mass vaccination campaign to fight COVID-19 is ramping up, resuming the booking of first-dose appointments in the valley area — its large clinics in Sacramento, Roseville, Modesto, Stockton and Tracy, but providers’ capacity to inject shots still far outweighs supply.
The California Department of Public Health on its online vaccine data tracker shows providers have administered 12,637,197 doses to date, an increase by 464,249 over Monday’s total.
In addition to shots injected Monday, some of the large one-day increase is due to better data reporting. The state says providers have administered an average of about 207,000 doses per day over the past week.
The state reports about 4.34 million people are now fully vaccinated — about 11% of California’s total population and 14% of its adult population — and an additional 4.19 million are partially vaccinated.
About 22% of California’s total population and 28% of its adults are at least partially vaccinated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC reported Tuesday that California has administered only about 73% of the nearly 17.4 million doses it has been sent, which ranks 41st among the 50 states plus Washington, D.C. The national median is 79%.
Weekly allocation data released Tuesday by the CDC showed California is slated to receive about 1.77 million doses next week: 524,000 first doses and 439,000 second doses from Pfizer; 380,000 first doses and the same number of second doses from Moderna and 44,000 of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot.
California’s weekly federal allocation of the vaccine is growing slower than expected at the moment because a manufacturing issue has reportedly hampered nationwide distribution of the J&J single-dose vaccine. With only 44,000 J&J shots coming to California this week and next, some local health providers across the state have reported that they expect no more J&J until the last week of March.
The chief executive of Blue Shield, the state’s third-party administrator for the vaccine campaign, said on a call last week with reporters that the state expects weekly supply to grow from its current rate to 2.5 million in April.
But Blue Shield’s contract with the state also included goals of having capacity to administer far more than that: 3 million a week by the start of March, and 4 million a week by the end of April.
Local health officials and hospital networks across the Sacramento region have said for weeks they can handle far more injections than they are currently performing, saying supply is currently the only restraint.
Northern California VA locations giving vaccines
Veterans Affairs Northern California Health Care is now offering COVID-19 vaccination to veterans at 11 clinic locations: Auburn, Chico, Fairfield, Mare Island, Martinez, Mather, McClellan, Oakland, Redding, Yreka and Yuba City.
Enrolled veterans are eligible regardless of age.
Veterans can book appointments online using the My HealtheVet portal; or by calling 1-800-382-8387 between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays.
More details are available at northerncalifornia.va.gov.
How many doses have been given across Sacramento area?
These are the totals for combined first and second doses, administered through Sunday, as reported by the state public health department, by recipient county of residence.
▪ Sacramento: 429,212 (27,374 doses per 100,000 residents)
▪ El Dorado: 61,000 (31,590 doses per 100,000)
▪ Placer: 149,665 (37,376 doses per 100,000)
▪ Yolo: 73,719 (32,967 doses per 100,000)
Figures may be undercounts due to data reporting delays.
Sacramento-area health offices, public clinics and pharmacies
Most county health offices are splitting their direct allocations between their own county-run clinics, non-chain hospitals and other partners, including some Safeway pharmacies.
CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens offer vaccine appointments at some of their pharmacies across California, including some in Sacramento, El Dorado and Placer counties, as part of a federal retail pharmacy partnership.
Rite Aid announced Thursday that it is expanding eligibility and prioritizing scheduling for teachers, school staff and child care workers in California.
CVS said last week it would be offering jabs at 119 more of its pharmacies as early as Sunday. That’s in addition to the 167 locations already offering the vaccine in California, as well as 600 Target stores nationwide where CVS has a pharmacy.
Sacramento
▪ Received directly: Not reported.
▪ Administered: 349,960 to Sacramento County residents through last Friday. Of those, 234,894 were first doses and 115,066 were second doses.
Health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye told The Bee that the county continues to receive about 15,000 doses directly each week, but is hopeful that allocations will begin to increase soon as federal and state supply scales up. The CEO of Blue Shield said late last week that a big boost is expected in April.
Sacramento County has CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens stores participating in the federal partnership program.
Kasirye said Sacramento County is partnered with 90 local providers — from community centers to Safeway stores and other pharmacies not included in the federal partnership — to administer its doses, in addition to county-run sites.
Sacramento County has expanded eligibility to farm workers, restaurant employees and janitors as it advances within Phase 1B of the rollout.
The county last week opened a new clinic at Bayside Church in midtown on 19th Street, operated by Safeway. That clinic is offering the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine Wednesday and Thursday of this week and next week, by appointment only.
Sacramento County continues to offer drive-thru vaccine clinics at McClellan Park and Natomas High School; and walk-thru clinics at California Northstate University in Elk Grove and at Sacramento State.
All clinics require appointments in advance. Scheduling and booking information can be found at dhs.saccounty.net. Residents can sign up online for all except the Natomas High clinic; for that, residents must call 916-561-5253 on Mondays between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. to make an appointment, according to the county.
The county is also partnered with 11 Safeway pharmacies.
The McClellan Park, Sacramento State and Northstate clinics offer the Pfizer vaccine, meaning a three-week wait between doses. Safeway pharmacies offer Moderna, a four-week wait.
El Dorado
▪ Received: 48,370 total doses.
▪ Administered: 47,618 doses as of March 5, according to the county website.
El Dorado announced clinic dates for its South Lake Tahoe health office for the rest of March and early April.
Robinson’s Pharmacy on Main Street in Placerville is taking appointments through CalVax, the state’s online vaccine registration system.
The county offers clinics for El Dorado residents ages 65 and older in the parking structure at Red Hawk Casino in Placerville on Thursdays, also available through CalVax.
Walgreens in Cameron Park and the CVS store on Palmer Drive in Cameron Park are also now offering Moderna vaccine appointments as part of the federal retail pharmacy partnership.
The county is also partnered with six Safeway stores.
More detailed information on county-run and county-partnered vaccine clinics can be found at edcgov.us/Government/hhsa/edccovid-19-clinics.
Placer
▪ Received: 78,370 through Feb. 28. Of those, roughly half were retained by the public health office while the remaining half were transferred to other health providers.
▪ Administered: Placer says county residents had received 75,981 first doses and 39,440 second doses through the end of February, but this total is not broken down by provider. It includes those given at county-run clinics and by hospital systems.
Placer offers most of its county-run clinics at The Grounds, formerly the Placer County Fairgrounds, in Roseville. Appointments are required in advance.
The Grounds clinic is open for Placer County residents ages 65 and older as well as those in Phase 1A and 1B who are employed in Placer County.
The county is offering Pfizer and Moderna clinics Monday through Thursday this week. All are fully booked, according to the county website.
Placer is also partnered with eight Safeway pharmacies throughout the county.
More information on county-run clinics and Safeway partners in Placer is available at placer.ca.gov/vaccineclinics.
According to the CVS website, there are stores participating in the federal vaccine partnership in Auburn and Rocklin. There may also be availability at Rite Aid and Walgreens stores; users should check with individual stores for eligibility, the county says.
Appointments have also been made at Remedy RX Pharmacy in Roseville through a local partnership.
Yolo
▪ Received: Not reported since early February.
▪ Administered: 15,798 first doses and 12,487 second doses through last Friday, county spokeswoman Jenny Tan said Monday.
Yolo County’s vaccination website says the county is operating five clinics this week, all private, including for agriculture workers, education workers and jail inmates.
More details regarding county-run clinics are available on the county website at yolocounty.org.
Hospital systems
Hospital systems operating in multiple counties receive their own allocations from the state.
Sutter Health announced Tuesday that it is resuming the booking of first-dose appointments in the valley area — its large clinics in Sacramento, Roseville, Modesto, Stockton and Tracy — after it had suspended new appointments for about a month due to inadequate supply from the state.
A Sutter spokeswoman said last week that about 21,000 second-dose appointments had to be rescheduled.
Sutter says it has administered more than 400,000 doses to date.
UC Davis Health is vaccinating “patients who work in education and childcare, emergency services, and food and agriculture” in line with the state’s Phase 1B guidelines, according to its website, but has not yet begun offering shots to those with high-risk medical conditions.
Dr. David Lubarksay, head of UC Davis Health, spoke critically of the state’s decision to vaccinate this group without requiring verifying of these conditions beyond a self-attestation, fearing it will lead to line-cutting.
“With so many people now ... deciding for themselves that they are eligible, this will push truly sick and poor patients farther back in line,” he told The Bee.
Kaiser Permanente is now vaccinating patients 65 and older, and recently started booking appointments for patients based on occupation. Essential workers in the fields of education, child care, food and agriculture, emergency services, health care and long-term care are all now eligible for shots via Kaiser.
In an update this week, Kaiser Permanente said it had administered about 655,000 of the 860,000 doses it has received at Northern California facilities, and has more than 283,000 future appointments scheduled.
Kaiser Permanente says on its website it is offering vaccines to Kaiser members as well as non-members.
Dignity Health’s Mercy Medical Group says it has begun using the state’s My Turn website to schedule vaccination appointments.
This story was originally published March 16, 2021 at 1:16 PM.
