SLO County has the coronavirus vaccine. When can you get it?
The first doses of the coronavirus vaccine have arrived in San Luis Obispo County.
As county public health officer Dr. Penny Borenstein put it, “There’s light at the end of the tunnel.”
According to Borenstein, 1,950 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine are in the county’s deep freezer ready for distribution. The second allotment of Pfizer doses and additional vaccines from Moderna are expected to come in as soon as next week.
The first vaccine was to be administered Thursday, the county said.
According to Borenstein, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Western State Scientific Safety Review Working Group, a group that is independent from the federal government, have all said the vaccine is promising.
Vaccine distribution in San Luis Obispo County will happen over the course of months, Borenstein said. In the meantime, she added that the county needs to focus on containing the spread of COVID-19.
“We need to double down right now on driving down the number of cases of disease, while we continue to increase the number of people over the coming months who will be able to get (the) vaccine,” Borenstein said at a Wednesday news conference. “Those two things have to happen at the same time.”
Who will be the first to get the vaccine?
The county currently has 1,950 doses of the first Pfizer vaccine and 3,600 Moderna vaccines are expected to arrive next week, according to the county.
Borenstein said some vaccinations will be distributed this week. However, the following week, the county will “ramp up” vaccination distribution at invitation-only clinics for people within some sectors of healthcare.
Emergency responders, including emergency medical technicians, will be among the first to be vaccinated, Borenstein said.
Some hospital workers will also be among the first to have access to the vaccine. However Borenstein said San Luis Obispo County is hoping hospitals will be able to distribute the vaccine to their employees, rather than the county.
In order to reallocate some of the county’s first vaccine doses to local hospitals, Borenstein said, the county must receive approval from the state. That is expected to happen by next week.
“Our doses are going to be available first to emergency responders in the EMS world, dialysis,” Borensteins said. “Shortly thereafter other healthcare workers in primary care, urgent care clinics, pharmacy, dental, specialty care — the entire healthcare universe.”
“We anticipate that this will take us, in this first phase, several weeks to get through that entire workforce,” she added.
Long-term care facilities are expected to receive their own doses of the vaccine next week, Borenstein said.
Darren Smith, the CEO of Compass Health, Inc. — which operates all six skilled nursing facilities in SLO County — said skilled nursing facility employees and residents will be offered the vaccine through CVS and Walgreens pharmacies.
Smith said Compass Health registered for the program in late October. Vaccinations are expected to come in the last week of December or first week of January, he said.
Smith said the vaccines will be offered to all staff and residents at Compass Health facilities.
Compass Health was told they would receive enough vaccines to cover both residents and staff. Should that not be the case, Smith said residents would be offered the vaccine first, then the most vulnerable staff.
When can the general public get the vaccine?
“I ask that people to be patient,” Borenstein said Wednesday.
It will be several months before the coronavirus vaccine is widely distributed.
Borenstein said she is hopeful that, around February, the county can begin Phase 1B of vaccine distribution, but no date has been set.
In Phase 1B, the vaccine will be distributed to people who are at higher risk of severe coronavirus and essential workers.
Borenstein said the vaccine will be distributed in phases based on workforce sectors. The county will update ReadySLO.org about which people fall into sectors that qualify for the vaccine as more doses become available.
“This is going to be over months, not weeks,” Borenstein said.
Who is distributing the vaccine?
The first doses of the vaccine will be distributed by the county Public Health Department directly and, if approved, local hospitals will distribute their vaccine doses to their employees.
Chain pharmacies that have partnered with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, such as CVS and Walgreens, will also be among the first to distribute the vaccine.
As time goes on, Borenstein said, the county expects private practitioners, pharmacies and clinics to distribute the vaccine. However, those distributors must adhere to the order of vaccine distribution.
“We in the public health department do not have the capacity to immunize the entire county,” she explained. “We very much are going to be looking to our partners for the actual vaccine administration.”
In other words, the county Public Health Department will only be allowed to distribute the vaccine to sectors that have been approved to get the vaccine.
“Those entities will have to actually sign an agreement that they will give vaccines in accordance with the policy direction of who’s ready, which sectors should be getting vaccine at a given point in time,” Borenstein said.
The county asked people to stay tuned to find out more about when they may qualify to get the vaccine.
This story was updated to reflect that the first vaccine was set to be administered on Thursday.
This story was originally published December 16, 2020 at 5:45 PM.
