COVID vaccine expected to arrive in Solano County
(Graphic by Solano News Update)
The first doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine are expected to arrive in Solano County this week.
Shipments of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine began moving over the weekend after the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave its stamp of approval as expected.
Some Bay Area and Sacramento-region hospitals began receiving the first doses of the vaccine after a shipment arrived on Monday. Officials at the U.C. Davis Medical Center in Sacramento said Federal Express drop off its initial doses early Tuesday morning.
Solano County has not yet received its shipment of around 3,900 doses but health officials say they are expected very soon. Those doses will be distributed to high-priority individuals, mainly those who work in healthcare-related fields, including hospital workers, emergency medical technicians and others who are likely to come into contact with COVID-19 patients.
Last week, Solano County’s top health officer Dr. Bela Matyas said the general public in Solano County could start receiving the vaccine sometime early next year. Those comments, delivered at a Board of Supervisors meeting, are more generous than predictions made by national health officials, which caution most of the general public won’t receive the vaccine until much later in the year.
One thing that could help the deployment of vaccines: On Tuesday, the FDA said a second COVID-19 vaccine developed by Moderna was “highly effective” at combating coronavirus infections. Like the Pfizer-developed drug, Moderna’s requires two shots before it becomes fully effective, but the FDA said there was evidence that Moderna’s vaccine helped thwart asymptomatic infections after just one dose.
If the FDA approves Moderna’s vaccine — which could come as soon as this week — shipments of the drug would be expected within a few days. The deployment of a second drug would help boost the number of people who are able to receive it, which could accelerate projected vaccines in a way Dr. Matyas indicated last week.
The vaccine can’t come soon enough: Solano County hospitals are already reporting a severe shortage of hospital intensive care unit bed space, a critical resource needed for the treatment of serious, life-threatening conditions like those brought on by COVID-19 infections in sensitive groups.
State health data reviewed by Solano News Update showed a shortage of hospital ICU beds at Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Vacaville and Vallejo (Kaiser Permanente disputes the data) and a complete exhaustion of ICU beds at NorthBay’s hospital in Fairfield (a NorthBay spokesperson confirmed the state’s data as accurate).
The shortage of hospital ICU beds comes as the Bay Area region — which includes Solano County — faces tougher restrictions on residents and businesses as the area’s overall hospital ICU bed space runs dangerously low. The state requires the new restrictions to be put in place within 24 hours of the region’s hospital ICU bed space falling below 15 percent availability. As of Monday, the Bay Area region’s hospital ICU bed space was just above 16 percent availability.
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