All Californians aged 16 and over will be eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations beginning April 15, the state announced on Thursday.
In addition, Santa Barbara County has opened the eligibility of all residents over the age of 50 for mass vaccination clinics run by public health next week in Lompoc.
On April 1, Thursday, 50 residents will be able to book appointments at any pharmacy, hospital, clinic or other vaccine provider in the state.
“It will be months before every Californian is vaccinated who he wants to be, but millions are vaccinated every week,” the state said in a statement.
“Our ability to do more has always been constrained by supply, fabricated supply,” Governor Gavin Newsom told a news conference on Thursday. “We are confident now that the supply of products will become available sooner than we anticipated.”
Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Agency for Health and Human Services, said the state also made the decision because of new coronavirus increases seen in other parts of the country and the world.
It’s a “vaccine race against variants and we need to do it fast,” he said.
The state wants to remove barriers to access to vaccination, including documentation, which is why it has decided to allow self-certification of people with medical conditions, he said.
People in this category do not need a doctor’s note or other documents and can sign something that certifies that they have a high-risk medical condition that qualifies.
Santa Barbara County continues to vaccinate the group over the age of 65, ages 16 to 64, with high-risk medical conditions, plus essential workers, including health workers, education and child care workers, food workers, and agriculture and emergency services workers. The 50-year-old group is eligible for the county-run clinic from Sunday to Saturday, and then on Thursday will be eligible for appointments at all vaccine providers.
Other counties, including San Luis Obispo County, have already extended eligibility for people over 50.
The appointments were highly requested at the local level, which is why the county has not yet opened them to additional groups, according to public health officials.
The county has distributed 142,441 doses of vaccine since Sunday and 11% of the county’s inhabitants are completely vaccinated.
April 1 is the time when Santa Barbara County officially enters the Blue Shield system nationwide, which will centralize vaccination schedules through the MyTurn website at https://myturn.ca.gov/.
Every pharmacy, hospital, and clinic has a different registration platform right now, “so by the end of the month, MyTurn is the platform that the entire state of California will use to register or schedule an appointment for vaccination.” Health Director Van Do-Reynoso said Tuesday at a town hall meeting.
County Executive Mona Miyasato last week signed a memorandum of understanding with the state for the Blue Shield system, she added.
Some providers, including Cottage Hospital and Sansum Clinic, have already started using the system simultaneously with their independent registration systems.
County leaders have consistently said they expect the limited supply of doses to increase, and weekly totals show higher deliveries and distributions in recent weeks.
Asked why other counties have vaccinated 50 more residents, while Santa Barbara County is still limited to 65 residents, Do-Reynoso said Tuesday:
“When a county has exhausted the number of people who are interested in receiving a vaccine and have the same supply, then they can have that policy change. So, as long as the county can attest that they did everything they could, they vaccinated all those eligible, over 65, comorbidities and anything and they still happen, they can reach the 50s ”.
“Unfortunately, we do not have enough vaccines, even if we see a huge, significant increase, we are still 65 years old and we still have 80-year-olds who want a vaccine, but have not been able to make an appointment, and we have other priority groups that they need a vaccine, but they still had a chance, so we want to follow the state’s guidelines and make sure these priority groups get vaccinated first before they get to the 1950s. ”
On Thursday, during an interview with KEYT, Van Do-Reynoso agreed that the process of checking several websites for vaccination meetings compared the process to getting a ticket to “Hamilton” or a concert.
This is expected to change as supply increases, and thousands of additional doses will be distributed to mass vaccination clinics starting Sunday, she said.
Appointments are available for the first clinic in Lompoc, by calling the 2-1-1 call center between 9:00 and 17:00 every day or by registering on the county website: https://publichealthsbc.org/vaccine /
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