San Mateo County's new COVID-19 data dashboard, launched Tuesday, shows that 48,826 individuals have received at least the first dose of the vaccine.
In total 58,750 vaccine doses have been administered in the county and 9,924 people have completed the vaccination series. During a report at the county's Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday, Dr. Anand Chabra, county COVID-19 mass vaccination section chief and Family Health Services medical director, said that vaccinations in the county include at least 30,000 county health care workers.
However, that number is likely higher as it does not include people who work in the county but live elsewhere. It also does not include people vaccinated through CVS and Walgreens partnerships. Vaccinations take place through large health providers like Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health, partnerships with CVS and Walgreens and lastly, through the county's health department, which targets people who are not covered by health plans.
CVS and Walgreens, which receive vaccine doses directly from the federal government, have scheduled over 90% of the 527 enrolled long-term care facilities in the county, Chabra said.
A county partnership with Safeway provided vaccination to an additional 765 staff and residents at assisted living facilities. Of the 28,725 first doses that the county received, over 92% have been administered to patients or distributed to other health care providers, Chabra said.
This week, the county will focus on vaccinating adults 65 and older in disadvantaged communities.
The county hosted another vaccination clinic at the San Mateo County Event Center over the weekend, in partnership with Dignity Health. About 818 health care workers were vaccinated at the clinic on Saturday and more appointments are scheduled Tuesday, Chabra said.
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Rogers and Chabra said that the county is working on a plan to get the vaccine to home-bound seniors, farmworkers and communities most impacted by COVID-19, through neighborhood-level partnerships with pharmacies, local clinics or community organizations.
Recent state guidance allows vaccination for people in the education and childcare, emergency services and food and agriculture sectors, along with adults 65 years and older.
While Rogers said that the county is "firmly behind" efforts to roll the vaccine out quickly and efficiently, limited vaccine supplies continue to slow things down.
"To see these things flourish, the supplies really have to be flowing at a greater scale," Rogers said. "It's not just the supplies. It's not knowing what supplies will come in. You cannot plan for really large scale events if you don't know next week whether you're getting 500 doses, 1,000 doses or 11,000 doses."
The county also created a website for health care volunteers to sign up to help administer the vaccine in future. The volunteer sign-up is available at https://smcgov.knack.com/volunteers#volunteer-home/.
Though Gov. Gavin Newsom lifted stay-at-home orders in the state on Monday, Rogers encouraged people to continue to focus on protective behaviors such as hand washing, wearing a face mask in public, social distancing and avoiding gatherings.
"It's really a time for renewed vigilance. The signal sent by the state is not really intended to cause everyone to relax. If anything, it's the signal of the need for all of us to continue to rally around all of these protective behaviors," Rogers said.
San Mateo County must continue to follow the restrictions of the purple or widespread risk tier of the state's Blueprint for a Safer Economy. The purple tier restricts most indoor operations, with some exceptions.
Recent state data shows that the county has a case rate of 49.9 new cases per day per 100,000, compared to statewide rate of 71.6 new cases per 100,000. But the county's high testing rate allows the case rate to be adjusted to 25 cases per 100,000.
The Board of Supervisors also voted Tuesday to extend an agreement with Curative Inc. to continue COVID-19 testing through June. Regarding reports that Curative may provide false negative tests for asymptomatic individuals with COVID-19, Rogers said they are "keeping a close eye" on the situation but believe that it's essential to keep the partnership.
For a list of COVID-19 testing sites in San Mateo County, visit https://www.smcgov.org/testing. Access COVID-19 data dashboards, including the new vaccine data, at https://www.smchealth.org/coronavirus-health-data. To view which businesses and activities can proceed in the county, visit covid19.ca.gov/safer-economy and type "San Mateo."
