How does California distribute rare vaccines?

Sacramento — At this stage of vaccine deployment, it seems immeasurable that Los Angeles will be forced to temporarily close the largest vaccination sites at Dodger Stadium and four other locations. But that’s happening and raises questions about how local, state, and federal governments decide where to send rare vaccine doses.

Take a look at California’s vaccination system.

How are doses assigned?

The federal government decides on a weekly number of vaccines that the state gets, and then the state decides how to divide them between the county and the major health systems. The county and healthcare system most often demand more than can be obtained as a result of having much more capacity than available shots.

The state divides the vaccine through a formula aimed at estimating how many people in the area are eligible.

Initially, the formula focused on healthcare professionals, based on data from employers to determine where and how many doses to administer. Darrell Ng, a spokesman for the California Public Health Service, is now being expanded to include people over the age of 65 and other occupations, and the state draws census and demographic data from the State Treasury. Said that. The state gives proportional doses because far more people are eligible than the vaccines available.

The county has been given a wide range of freedom in deciding how to distribute vaccines among providers, Ng said.

In Kern County, authorities are trying to equitably distribute doses not only to the largest city, Bakersfield, but also to local entities, said Kim Hernandez, the county’s chief epidemiologist. Stated.

The county also takes into account the doses that the institution has given in the past and the doses that are on hand to determine how to effectively distribute the vaccine, she said.

How many vaccines have you been given?

California administered approximately 5.3 million shots of the vaccine produced by Moderna and Pfizer. You need two shots each to get the full effect.

Los Angeles County has a population of about 40 million, accounting for a quarter of the state’s population, and according to state data, it offers a similar percentage of shots. There are about 1.3 million people.

The second and third most populous counties, San Diego and Orange, manage 550,000 and 423,00 shots, respectively.

What happened in Los Angeles?

It’s not clear.

Mayor Eric Garcetti of the City of Los Angeles said Wednesday that a city of 4 million people had only 16,000 shots this week.

He didn’t explain the sharp decline, but said, “It’s not the place we deserve.”

The county’s public health service emailed the vaccine distribution methodology, but did not specifically explain why the city’s quotas were significantly reduced.

According to authorities, the county surveys vaccination providers weekly to find out how many second vaccination appointments have been made. The county distributes shots to cover them, then prioritizes the remaining doses of the vaccination center and gives the first shots to high-risk populations such as the most affected communities and the elderly. Offers.

“The high-volume site did not have enough vaccine this week to perform high-dose surgery to schedule the first dose,” the email said.

Andrew Neumer, a professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine, said it was logical for LA authorities to temporarily close Dodger Stadium.

“I don’t think it makes sense to keep Dodger Stadium open if the amount of vaccine they have is just as easy as in a high school gym,” he said. “But where is the vaccine for a populous county like LA and a devastated county like LA?”

“In my opinion, there wasn’t enough transparency in terms of dose,” he added.

When can things change?

Soon. Increasing the transparency and accountability of vaccine distribution methods is the goal of a new state partnership with California’s Blue Shield.

The state has hired a health insurance company to act as a third-party administrator who can centralize California’s distribution system. All counties are required to begin using a single state site to enroll vaccinated people. Called My TurnTherefore, the state can better analyze data on who is vaccinated.

Governor Gavin Newsom said Blue Shield’s new program will launch next week, but some counties and healthcare providers say they still lack details on how it works. ing. Newsom said the state would cancel the contract with the company this week.

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Contributed by Associated Press writer Don Thompson of Sacramento and Amy Taxine of Orange County.