Is California’s vaccine pace picking up amid COVID surge? Here’s what the numbers show
It’s possible that a surge of infections could do what a $116 million lottery may not have: break the vaccine slump.
COVID-19 vaccination rates across much of the U.S. sputtered recently. By early summer, demand in California plummeted, with new first doses trudging in at a rate not seen since vials were carefully rationed at the start of the rollout in December.
But there are early signs that as case rates escalate across the state and nationwide due to the highly contagious Delta variant, the vaccination pace may also be picking back up.
California from July 18 through Saturday administered about 260,000 initial doses, the highest weekly total in four weeks, according to data from the California Department of Public Health. Providers last Friday administered more than 50,000 first doses for the first day in almost a month.
The total marked a 17% increase from the previous week’s 222,000. Sacramento County vaccinations jumped from 8,700 to 10,300, a 19% week-over-week increase, and last Friday alone saw 2,100 new doses, the highest daily total in six weeks.
The pace of vaccinations is up nationwide. Cyrus Shahpar, the White House’s COVID-19 data director, tweeted Monday morning first doses jumped 24% compared to the previous week.
California’s last two full calendar weeks broke a stretch of seven straight week-over-week decreases dating back to late May. The week of July 11 to July 17 represented an 11% uptick over July 4 to July 10, though almost all of that increase came due to a dip for the Fourth of July holiday.
It’s still a far cry from the peak of vaccine enthusiasm, and it’s hard to know whether the uptick is a short-term bump or a lasting trend. California vaccinated more than 1 million residents for eight consecutive weeks in the spring, peaking at nearly 1.8 million in early April.
The resurgence is slight, but it is the first sign of vaccine demand trending upward since doses became available for adolescents ages 12 through 15. The accelerating pace comes as various government and private entities are starting to either require or ratchet up incentives to get vaccinated, and as general pandemic concern increases due to the Delta variant.
Both the California State University and University of California systems are requiring vaccination to return to campus, absent limited exemptions for medical reasons or religious beliefs, for the approaching fall semester.
Employers are allowed to mandate vaccination among employees. There have also been recent reports of some businesses in Sacramento and the Bay Area, such as bars and music venues, requiring customers to show their vaccine cards before entry.
More incentives are coming, for some sectors. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced health workers and state employees in California will soon have to either provide proof of vaccination or continue to mask up and be subject to routine testing for COVID-19. Employees can no longer self-attest they’ve been vaccinated.
The total of hospitalized virus patients has more than tripled since the state’s June 15 reopening, increasing from 981 to 2,981, CDPH reported Monday. State health officials have said an overwhelming majority of COVID-19 hospital admissions in 2021 have been unvaccinated.
The current surge is California’s first to start after vaccines were deployed. Anecdotally, doctors nationwide have given examples of critically ill COVID-19 patients regretting not getting vaccinated.
“We are seeing a lot of that,” Christian Sandrock, director of critical care at UC Davis Medical Center, said in a statement last week. “As they start to get really sick, they’re like, ‘Why did I not get the vaccine? Why did I not listen?’ I’d say more than half of them do that.”
Los Angeles County in mid-July reinstated a mask mandate for indoor public settings, regardless of vaccination status. More than a dozen other counties including Sacramento, Yolo, Fresno and most of the Bay Area issued similar advisories framed as strong recommendations.
Los Angeles officials announced the mandate July 15, the same day Sacramento and Fresno issued their recommendations.
State health data show that the following day, July 16, all three counties recorded their highest daily total for new first doses in three weeks: about 13,000 in Los Angeles, 1,700 in Sacramento and 1,000 in Fresno. For Los Angeles, it broke a streak of nine consecutive Fridays with fewer first doses than the one that came before.
As of Monday, CDPH reports about 24.2 million Californians have had at least one dose. That’s 61% of the state’s total population of 39.5 million, and about 71% of all who are at least 12 years old and eligible for the vaccine.
This story was originally published July 26, 2021 at 1:00 PM.
