Part 4- Can I Get the Vaccine Now?

Over the past few days there has been increasing frustration about the Covid-19 Vaccine roll-out and the fact that millions of doses are just sitting in refrigerators. This has put pressure on local Governors and public health officials to get it from the bottle, "into arms". The CDC reports at least 9 million people have received one dose. It sounds like a lot but it is far lower than planned. California ranks 43rd nationwide in administering the vaccine.

As I said before, each State is handling it their own way. In Florida, demand has overwhelmed supply as they are encouraging seniors to "sign-up". In other States cronyism is playing a role and if you know the right people, you can get a vaccine. Tonight Southern California has announced the vaccine will be given at Disneyland. The Golden State believes in "Go Big or Go Home". And Orange County will be speeding up vaccines for people over age 75.

In Northern California and other counties, administration is still in Tier 1 but Governor Newsom is feeling the heat and is allowing health departments to "speed things up" and expand the tiers to get more people vaccinated. This means they don't have to wait until everyone in Tier 1 is vaccinated before they expand to the next tier which includes people over age 75, workers in food, agriculture, education and emergency services. Remember, California has 2.4 million health care workers and skilled nursing patients and only about 784,000 vaccines have been administered.

So what does this mean for your grandmother, or wife, or father that is age 75? When can they get the vaccine? If they live in Florida or West Virginia, they can get on a wait list or get a (difficult to acquire) appointment now. For California, there are still no registries or clinics that are vaccinating. As more sites open up (stadiums, pharmacies, health departments, Safeway) the vaccine will be available to the public.

As I ended the blog before....Stay tuned. Stay positive. Stay safe.