Placer County’s ‘vaccine gap’: Officials say supply shortage keeps thousands from COVID shot

Four thousand Placer County residents received the COVID-19 vaccine last week. And public health officials said they could ramp up the pace to 20,000 people per week.

The only problem: they don’t have enough vaccine to do it.

After Gov. Gavin Newsom’s mid-January announcement accelerating the pace of vaccination for Californians 65 and older, the county has struggled to keep up without increased vaccine shipments.

“We are experiencing a vaccine gap, meaning our current capacity to administer vaccine far exceeds our supply,” said Dr. Rob Oldham, director of health and human services and interim health officer, in a public meeting this week.

And on Thursday, Placer County teachers, child care workers and emergency services personnel were also cleared to receive the vaccine, accelerating the demand even more.

“So for Placer, the biggest challenge with this move, again, has been that it has expanded the pool of eligible resident to over 80,000 people even though the weekly dose allocation Placer has received from the state have remained flat or even dropped,” Oldham said. “So at this rate, we will have no where near enough vaccine to finish this priority group anytime soon.”

The county receives an average of 4,300 doses per week, Oldham said.

Oldham said the problem was compounded when state public health told the county to use its allocated second doses as first doses to meet the increased demand in anticipation of being replenished from the federal government’s stockpile.

However, that stockpile didn’t exist, leaving Placer County to borrow doses from Sutter and Kaiser Permanente health care systems to avoid canceling its vaccine clinics at the county fairgrounds.

“I just keep trying to share that it’s the vaccine that we’re lacking. It’s not the manpower, the staff power, the woman power, the nurse power. We’ve got all that together,” said Supervisor Cindy Gustafson, who represents the Lake Tahoe area.

The news comes as Placer County’s COVID-19 metrics begin to slowly decline after hitting an all-time high during December and early January.

According to a report released earlier this month by the county, nearly half of the year’s total cases were reported in December, in large part because of gatherings the month before. Of the more than 6,000 cases recorded by public health in December, at least a third of those patients reported attending a large gathering. Sixty-eight of the cases reported attending a Thanksgiving gathering, the report said.

Household transmission accounted for another third of cases.

The county’s daily case rate now stands at 28.9 cases per 100,000 residents, a sizable decline compared with 56.3 cases on Jan. 1. Deaths attributed to COVID-19 now stands at 192 in the county, the majority of which occurred in December and early January.

Hospitalizations have followed a similar trend, with 95 people hospitalized with the virus. Of those, 20 people are in intensive care, according to the county’s COVID-19 dashboard. The data has taken a favorable shift compared to two weeks ago when 155 people were hospitalized with the virus in Placer County, leaving only 1.9% ICU capacity.

While vaccine clinics continue to be crowded, Oldham said, eligible residents can make appointments on the county’s website. Residents 75 and older can monitor local hospitals and Safeway pharmacies for availability, while residents 65 and older along with teachers, childcare workers and emergency personnel will have to schedule appointments at the county’s public health clinic. Workers will have to show proof of employment in Placer County.