San Diegans 50 and up eligible for vaccine starting April 1, and those 16 and up by April 15

The announcement comes as the state expects a strong and steady increase in vaccine supply

San Diego Union-Tribune

March 26, 2021 1:01 PM PT

Starting April 1, all Californians 50 and up will be eligible for a coronavirus vaccine, with those 16 and up eligible beginning April 15, according to an announcement on Thursday, March 25, from the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The news comes as officials anticipate a steady surge in vaccine supply, and as the rise of new coronavirus variants underscores the importance of vaccinating as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.

“With vaccine supply increasing and by expanding eligibility to more Californians, the light at the end of the tunnel continues to get brighter,” said Newsom in a statement.

Those in the soon-to-be eligible groups likely won’t be able to schedule appointments through MyTurn (myturn.ca.gov), the state’s vaccine notification and scheduling system, until April 1 or 15, according to a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health, but may be able to book appointments sooner at vaccine sites that use other scheduling systems.

The announcement was welcome news to Mary Niez, 59, who was pleased that people in the 50-64 age group will have a couple weeks to make appointments before having to compete with younger adults.

“The specter of being lumped in with everyone from (64) to 16 was a little disconcerting,” said Niez, who lives in the College Area near San Diego State University. “We have decreased immunity, and we’re not the same as a 30- and a 40-year-old.”

Danielle Tanner received her first vaccination (Moderna) from Tori Anderson, RN.

Gov. Newsom also said that, effective immediately, family members who show up with someone currently eligible to get immunized can also get a shot, regardless of their age, occupation or medical history.

The state’s Department of Public Health later clarified that family members can only get vaccinated if they live in a county’s most socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, as measured by the state’s Healthy Places Index. A department official said that vaccine providers can choose whether to immunize relatives or anyone else living with a person who has made a vaccine appointment.

It’s unclear whether any local vaccine providers will do so. Spokespersons for Scripps Health and Sharp HealthCare, the region’s two largest health systems, said that they will continue to offer vaccines by appointment only, noting that inoculating people without appointments would make it nearly impossible to plan their operations. A representative for UC San Diego Health said the system needed to learn more about the recently announced changes before commenting, and officials at Rady Children’s Hospital were unavailable for comment.

The sweeping announcements were driven by the state’s expectation that it will receive 2.5 million doses a week in the first half of April, with an uptick to 3 million doses in the latter half of the month. Currently, California receives around 1.8 million doses a week.

Local supply has recently gone up, too. Last week, the region received around 90,000 doses. This week, county officials expect to receive 98,000. And next week, officials expect a 10 percent increase, which would mean that close to 108,000 doses will flow into the region.

“We are beginning to see sustained increases in the availability of new vaccines. We would like to see much larger jumps and we certainly have much more capacity,” said Supervisor Nathan Fletcher on Wednesday, March 24, during the county’s weekly coronavirus briefing.

“We ask the public to continue to be patient. There’s a large number of San Diegans that are now eligible.”

If the fraction of California’s doses routed to San Diego holds steady, that means the region could receive around 125,000 doses a week in the first half of April and closer to 150,000 a week in the second half.

That would help the region make full use of its extensive network of vaccine sites, which have the capacity to immunize 35,000 San Diegans a day, said Nick Macchione, director of the county’s Health and Human Services Agency. These locations only immunized around 12,600 people a day last week.

County officials hope to have 1.9 million San Diegans fully immunized by July 1. The need for mass vaccination was laid bare on Wednesday, March 24, when the county reported the first two local cases of a coronavirus variant first spotted in Brazil. Researchers and public health officials stress that current vaccines can curtail the spread and emergence of new strains by lowering the overall amount of virus circulating and mutating in the world.

“It really is, in some ways, a race of vaccines against variants,” said Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services, while at a vaccination site in Orange County with Newsom on Thursday, March 25.

The arrival of more vaccine should also help San Diego move into a less restrictive reopening tier. That’s because the state will adjust the cutoff for exiting the county’s current tier, the red tier, once 4 million vaccine doses have been administered in ZIP codes that fall into the bottom quartile of Healthy Places Index regions.

As of Wednesday, March 24, 3 million doses have been delivered in those areas. Once the state hits the 4 million mark, counties will need a coronavirus case rate of below six cases per 100,000 residents to exit the red tier; the current cutoff is four.

San Diego County’s case rate is 5.5. If the region can limit the spread of the coronavirus over the next few weeks, it could enter the orange tier by April 7.

That would lead to further gradual reopenings of the region’s economy. Restaurants, places of worship and movie theaters could operate at 50 percent rather than 25 percent of indoor capacity. Capacity limits on shopping malls would lift. And bars could reopen outdoors.

On Thursday, March 25, the county reported 210 new COVID-19 cases and 11 deaths. The number of San Diegans in the hospital due to a coronavirus infection has dropped to 217, including 75 people currently in the intensive care unit.

— Jonathan Wosen is a reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune

What you need to know about San Diego's COVID-19 vaccine rollout

UPDATED May 5, 2021 | 9:16 AM

Am I eligible for the vaccine?

Anyone 16 and up is eligible.

Where can I get my shot?

The region has mass vaccination sites in La Mesa, La Jolla, Chula Vista, San Marcos and Del Mar. There are also many smaller sites throughout San Diego County, some run by Sharp HealthCare and Rady Children’s Hospital. The county’s COVID-19 vaccine page lists the various locations and ways to sign up; we have a similar resource on the U-T’s website. Local pharmacies are an option, too. CVS is now offering walk-in (appointment-free) vaccination as well as same-day appointments. If you have a Facebook account, you may want to join the San Diego Vaccine Hunters group, where more than 6,000 people ask and answer questions about how to book an appointment.

If you want to make an appointment at one of the smaller county-run sites, you can do so through an online system called MyTurn (myturn.ca.gov). Several of these sites are now also accepting walk-ins.

County officials have said that seniors who don’t have a computer can call 2-1-1 for help scheduling vaccination appointments. There’s also a group called San Diego Vaccine Angels, which is helping seniors and those who aren’t tech savvy book appointments.

Health care providers such as UC San Diego Health, the San Diego VA, Sharp and Scripps have been reaching out to older patients within their systems to schedule appointments, but that is happening slowly and unevenly between providers depending on how much vaccine they have.

K-12 teachers and staff won’t have to schedule their own vaccine appointments, as that will be handled through a program run by the San Diego County Office of Education and California Schools Voluntary Employees Benefits Association (VEBA), an organization that offers health care benefits to school employees. Scripps Health will work with law enforcement agencies to ensure that officer are immunized and San Diego firefighters will go out into the fields to vaccinate farm workers.

Can I pick which vaccine I get?

Sort of. Some of the the county’s vaccine locations only offer the Moderna vaccine. Others offer the Pfizer vaccine, such as the Del Mar Fairgrounds superstation.

But both of those vaccines use the same approach to spark immunity against the coronavirus and are about 95 percent effective at preventing you from getting sick with COVID-19.

Speaking of which, you’ll need to come back for a booster shot three or four weeks later for Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines, respectively. That second dose maximizes immunity against the virus. When you get your first shot, you’ll receive a vaccination record card reminding you to return for that next appointment.

The most recently authorized vaccine, made by Johnson & Johnson, only requires one shot.

How much does the shot cost?

The shot is free — though, of course, the U.S. government used taxpayer dollars to purchase the doses. Vaccine providers can bill your insurance an administration fee, but there’s no copay. And if you don’t have insurance, you’ll still get the vaccine at no cost.

What can I do after getting vaccinated?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say it’s OK to get together with small numbers of other vaccinated people indoors — with or without a mask — once you’ve been fully vaccinated (e.g. a dinner party). If you received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, that would be two weeks after your second dose. If you received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, that would be two weeks after your shot.

The CDC says it’s also OK for fully vaccinated people to gather with unvaccinated people who live together, as long as those people are at low risk of developing severe COVID-19. And the agency has said that fully vaccinated people can travel within the U.S. without getting a coronavirus test before or after their trip or needing to quarantine after their travels. Those who travel internationally won’t need a negative coronavirus test unless it’s required by the nation they’re traveling to, but will still need a negative test result before boarding a flight back to the U.S. and must get another test within three to five days of returning from their trip.

Caution is still key. The CDC says to avoid medium- or large-sized gatherings regardless of vaccination status, and to wear a mask during large outdoor gatherings. Part of the issue is that you don’t have to have COVID-19 symptoms to spread the coronavirus, and many people still haven’t been vaccinated yet. Researchers say that throwing caution to the wind could further fuel the spread of the virus and even lead to new strains that vaccines don’t work against — undermining the whole immunization campaign.

Updates

1:01 p.m. March 26, 2021: This story has been updated with additional information from Gov. Gavin Newsom.

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