Sacramento County Weekly Vaccine Shipment Comes Up Short
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – Despite other counties getting more shots, Sacramento County says its vaccine distribution is down significantly.
Vaccine distribution may take longer in Sacramento County. This week the county received 18% fewer vaccine doses than the week before.
"I understand there will be different allocations for different counties," Taylor, a teacher in Sacramento said.
She was finally able to receive her first dose, but it wasn't easy.
"Every day at midnight. I would check Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, county and all of them said full booked," Taylor said. "It makes sense that we wouldn't get quite as many as LA county."
But what about a place like Kern County? With 600,000 fewer people than Sacramento, this week Kern County got the same amount of doses.
We asked UC Davis infectious disease expert Dr. Dean Blumberg why.
"The vaccine is being distributed along with population but also other factors. There might be some counties that have higher concentrations of nursing home residents. They count for 39% of deaths. The state is prioritizing to those areas. Any county that has a higher portion of those over 75 or over 65 years of age," Blumberg said.
Despite the county's current lack of vaccines, Dr. Blumberg says distribution could ramp up soon.
"I'm hearing in the next few weeks because of increased manufacturing capacity and possibly another vaccine coming on board that we should have a lot more vaccine available," he said.
Dr. Dean Blumberg, Professor, Infectious Diseases UC Davis
"I would love for as many as people as possible to get the vaccine so we can put this behind us," Taylor said.
Blue Shield is the third-party agency working with the California Department of Public Health to allocate vaccine doses.
CBS13 did reach out to the state to ask why Sacramento didn't get many of them this week. They have not gotten back to us.
