Parts of the Bay Area are expected to receive the first deliveries of the recently approved Covid-19 vaccine as soon as Monday.
KQED reached out to counties across the Bay Area to ask when they’d receive their first vaccine deliveries.
While most counties said they were still carefully planning for the shipments, Marin County said it expects its first shipment Wednesday, Santa Clara County said it’s expecting its first shipment as early as Monday, and Alameda County said it would receive its first shipment Thursday or Friday.
Santa Clara County was home to the first known victims of the coronavirus in the United States. and was among the first in the country to announce stay-at-home orders.
It is now poised to receive some of the first shipments of the new Pfizer vaccine, currently on route from Michigan and Wisconsin to counties in all 50 states.
Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, Santa Clara County’s testing and vaccine officer, says the drug is first going to larger counties with sufficient ultra-cold storage.
He says the health department will use about a third of the initial 17,550 dose shipment to inoculate all skilled nursing facility staff with one of two shots starting later this week, which totals about six thousand people.
“We certainly don’t want them all coming at once, in case anyone ends up with some of the mild side effects, so we’ll do a portion and a portion and a portion and hopefully we’ll get them all vaccinated hopefully in the next few weeks,” Fenstersheib said.
The remaining doses will go to a fraction of the hospitals’ staff.
There are roughly 130,000 health care workers in the county, including skilled nurses, EMT’s, and others.
Alameda County will receive 13,650 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, according to the county’s health agency, with first doses going to high-risk acute hospital workers. Another priority group are patients in elderly care facilities.
While the vaccine was initially purported to head to Marin Monday, it will now be delivered Wednesday. Marin County Public Health Officer Matt Willis said “we were ready Monday, we’ll be extra ready Wednesday.”
â Sara Hossaini (@MsHossaini)
Copyright 2020 KQED