Santa Barbara County preparing for maximum vaccine rollout
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Fifteen long weeks ago, Santa Barbara County received its first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. At Cottage Hospital, among the first to get vaccinated were infectious disease specialist Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons and registered nurse Lorenzo Vasquez.
During a press conference on Dec. 17, Vasquez said, “My family appreciates it. I appreciate it. It just adds on to be able to take care of our patients a lot better."
According to Santa Barbara County Public Health’s COVID-19 Dashboard, between March 13 and March 19, 14,405 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered. The public health department says it has fully vaccinated 11.4% of the population.
In the last two weeks, the county has administered 33,178 doses. Of those 5,178 were the one-dose Jannsen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine -- or 15.6%.
The U.S. census estimated Santa Barbara County's population to be 77.9% adults and 22.1% kids. Santa Barbara County Public Health estimates the current total population to about 457,000 people.
Santa Barbara County Public Health officials say they have fully vaccinated 52,092 adults.
At last week’s rate of doses, Santa Barbara County will need 47,410 doses of the one-dose Jannsen shot and 464,675 doses of the two-dose Moderna and Pfizer-BionTech vaccines: a total of 512,085 shots. 48,327 people have their first dose and are waiting for their second dose of the Moderna and Pfizer-BionTech vaccines. It will take 35 and a half weeks to vaccinate the rest of the population – about in time for Thanksgiving.
However, earlier this month President Joe Biden said the United States will have enough vaccine doses for every adult by the end of May.
Santa Barbara Emergency Medical Services director, Nick Clay, said last week 9,650 doses of three COVID-19 vaccines were sent to Santa Barbara County.
A spokeswoman for Cottage Health said they could ramp their vaccine rollout to a potential of 13,000 if they have enough vaccines. They are currently vaccinating 2,000 patients a day, two days a week at their drive-through clinic. They can do six days a week plus an additional 1,000 a week at their Urgent Care sites.
A spokeswoman at Marian Regional Medical Center said they are vaccinating 2,400 people this week. And have the capacity to vaccinate about 1,200 people per day.
A spokeswoman for Lompoc Valley Medical Center said they have administered 9,836 doses as of Tuesday morning. They're currently vaccinating about 2,000 people per week. And could increase that to 2,700 people per week if they had enough vaccines.
As we previously reported Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics is currently vaccinating 160 patients per clinic. And their clinics are currently Thursdays and Saturdays. They hope to increase their rollout to 750 weekly vaccines.
We also previously reported Public Health can vaccinate 2,000 people per day with its mobile clinic. If they can move to a seven-day a week rollout that’s 14,000 people per week.
The five major health systems in Santa Barbara County estimated a total weekly maximum rollout of 38,850. That number also assumes vaccine doses are not an issue and they have available staff.
If Santa Barbara County were to continue vaccinating at its current rate for the next 9 weeks until June 1, when President Biden promised enough vaccines for every adult, then use just the four system’s maximum capacities, Santa Barbara could (by our estimation) have every adult vaccinated by the second week of August.
This projection also does not include national pharmacies like CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens and Vons, which are also vaccinating people.
A spokesman for Rite-Aid said they have eight locations in Santa Barbara County. They're administering the vaccine doses they get as quickly as they can. Last week they received and administered around 200,000 doses across 1,200 stores in eight states and two city jurisdictions. On average that's about 166 doses per week per store.
A spokeswoman for CVS said they are administering COVID-19 vaccines at 50,000 locations in 35 states and Puerto Rico. And at 285 select CVS Pharmacies in California. NewsChannel 3-12 counted 7 sites in Santa Barbara County listed on CVS's website. The spokeswoman said CVS has the capacity to administer 20 to 25 million doses in a month throughout their locations if they have the doses. That's an average of 100-125 per location per week.
If you add in CVS and Rite-Aid's about 266 doses per week that moves the timing to just before Thanksgiving without max capacity and end of July with max capacity.
Clay said the best thing people can do to speed up the vaccination process is get the first vaccine available to them and continue wearing masks and avoiding gatherings.
Clay said it only takes one nice weekend of people letting their guard down to spread COVID-19 enough to shut ourselves back down. And when people choose which vaccine they want it slows the process. He said all three vaccines are very good.
