Fresno County vaccination sites opening up — including some for teachers. Here’s where
Fresno County health officials said registration spots for a vaccine continue to open up daily — and teachers will soon be among those eligible for a shot.
People can check the availability of appointments and sign up to be notified at the state Department of Public Health’s site for My Turn, myturn.ca.gov.
The county has received 132,000 doses of the vaccine through this week, according to Joe Prado, the county’s community health division manager.
The county is expecting about 20,000 doses a week, Prado said, which is about double what the county has been receiving.
“We’re going to open 9,000 spots at the (Fresno) Fairgrounds next week with a focus on 65 plus and health care workers,” he said. “People will begin signing up. You’ll see more spots available Monday.”
Those doses do not include the shots going to pharmacies, like CVS or Rite-Aid, or multi-county agencies, like Kaiser Permanente.
Local health departments including Fresno County will set aside 10% of vaccination allocations under a state mandate for teachers to start getting shots on March 1, according to health officials. Prado said the health department is assessing its efforts to ensure vaccines are shared equitably among school districts.
Fresno County reported 179 new cases of the virus, which brings the total since March to 93,734. Eleven new deaths reported on Friday bring that total to 1,367, according to Dr. Rais Vohra, the county interim health officer.
This week also saw the “soft opening” of a vaccination clinic at Gaston Middle School in southwest Fresno, which is meant to target the Black community and other groups, as well as those with less access to online registrations.
Outreach workers are seeking people to help get registered and sign-ups for that location are not public, according to Shantay Davies-Balch, who leads the African-American COVID-19 Coalition for the Fresno COVID-19 Equity Project.
New data dashboard
Fresno County Health officials unveiled a new dashboard that has the latest COVID-19 cases, deaths, hospitalizations and other data, according to Dr. Stephanie Koch-Kumar, the county’s senior epidemiologist.
She cautioned that the deaths are updated as they are confirmed by officials and are not necessarily a reflection of the daily count.
Do the shots have side effects?
Fewer than 7,000 people reported having side effects from COVID-19 vaccines after the first 13.7 million doses were administered in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
Of the 6,994 people who said they had side effects between Dec. 14 and Jan. 13, 640 were considered serious, the CDC said.
The findings were reported in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and were monitored by a system that records submitted side effects of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.
The most common side effects were headache (22.4%), fatigue (16.5%) and dizziness (16.5%), according to the CDC. It said 113 deaths were reported, including 78 individuals who lived in long-term care facilities.
Muscle pain, chills, fever, swelling at the injection site, joint pain and nausea were also recorded after vaccinations.
Other Valley counties
Tulare County reported 88 new cases to bring the total to 47,399 since the pandemic began. Three new deaths pushed the total to 720 fatal cases.
Merced County tallied 104 new cases, bringing the total to 28,489 cases. Four new deaths make that total 388.
Kings County added 77 new cases but no new deaths. Those totals are now 15,153 and 201, respectively.
Madera County did not report any new fatal cases on Friday, which leaves that total at 201, Thirty-five new infections bring the total to 15,153 cases since the pandemic began.
Mariposa County has seen 389 cases and seven deaths.
The Sacramento Bee contributed to this report.
