Coronavirus update: As death toll hits milestones, Fresno-area vaccine distribution lags
The coronavirus death toll across the nation rolled past 400,000 on Tuesday, including a number of new fatalities reported in central San Joaquin Valley counties following the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend.
Fresno County interim health officer Dr. Rais Vohra reported 36 additional deaths, bringing the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the county to 968.
Madera County added 21 deaths with 151 to date, Merced County had 12 deaths to bring its total to 308. There were five more coronavirus deaths in Tulare County with a total of 506, and two in Kings County with a total of 145.
Across the Valley, the death toll now tops 2,000 since the first were reported in March, 2020, and with 11 days remaining January is now the deadliest month of the pandemic with 473 deaths.
There were 459 COVID-19 deaths in the Valley in December 2020.
The number of coronavirus deaths in the United States is 401,553, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
While the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths mount, cities and counties in the state are struggling to obtain and distribute coronavirus vaccines.
In a briefing Tuesday, Vohra and Joe Prado, community health division manager for Fresno County, said the pace of shipments are not keeping pace with demand.
“We’re going to run out of vaccine if our allocation doesn’t increase,” Vohra said. “We’re ready for twice or three times the allocation we’re getting.”
Vaccine shipments in state not meeting demand
County public health officials had based a phased vaccination schedule on the expectation of receiving 30,000 doses each week, but weekly allocations now are coming in from the California Department of Public Health at between 8,000 and 10,000 doses each week.
Prado said the Fresno County Department of Public Health requested 20,000 additional doses from the state, but was notified Tuesday it will receive only 5,100 more doses.
In Stanislaus County, officials were hoping to reopen two vaccination clinics by the end of this week, but supply is an issue.
Clinics in Modesto and at the California State University, Stanislaus were closed on Monday after California Department of Public Health epidemiologist Dr. Erica S. Pan recommended health care providers stop administering does from a single batch of Moderna vaccine after a higher-than-usual number of possible allergic reactions were reported at one community vaccination clinic in San Diego.
In Kern County, the Department of Public Health Services on Wednesday will hold a soft launch of a mass vaccination clinic at the Kern County Fairgrounds, administering around 300 doses, four days a week.
The goal is 5,000 a day. “Right now we don’t have enough vaccine that we could do 5,000 a day,” Tom Beckett, tech services manager of Kern County Public Health Services told Bakersfield.com. “We’re hopeful that that is going to change soon. And as that changes, we will scale this up.”
In San Francisco, Mayor London Breed said in a virtual press conference that the city would run out of COVID-19 vaccine by Thursday, unless it receives additional doses before then.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health had received 31,665 doses and through Tuesday had administered at least 12,920 first doses and 2,625 second doses. The remaining allotment will go to those scheduled for initial doses or those needing a second.
Los Angeles County opened five large-scale vaccination sites on Tuesday with plans to reach 20,000 doses a day while cautioning that supplies were “extremely limited” and urging patience as it worked with state and federal officials to expand capacity and the vaccine supply.
The county has used 58% of the first doses and about 35% of its designated for second doses, a utilization rate much higher than state and national averages.
California has one of the lowest utilization rates in the nation with only 39.3% of 3.5 million vaccine doses used, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker.
In Nevada 39.5% of 212,000 does have been used, and in Alabama 35.6% of 445,000 does have been used.
New, total case numbers across the valley
The CDPH reported 23,794 new coronavirus cases in the state on Tuesday with a 7-day average of 35,669 and 33,739 deaths. In the valley …
Fresno County: 446 new cases, 82,485 total
Kern: 441 new cases, 79,930 total
San Joaquin: 311 new cases, 57,405 total
Stanislaus: 192 new cases, 42,413 total
Tulare: 180 new cases, 41,196 total
Merced: 127 new cases, 23,927 total
Madera: 115 new cases, 13, 443 total
No change in ICU capacity
The CDPH on Tuesday also released its most recent COVID-19 statistics including intensive care unit capacity in counties across the state.
ICU capacity remains below 15% in the San Joaquin Valley, Bay Area and Southern California, and all remain under regional stay at home orders. The order will be lifted for a region once its four-week ICU projection shows a capacity of greater than or equal to 15%.
Capacity projections are based on current ICU capacity available, community transmission rate, regional case rates and the proportion of ICU cases admitted.