SAN DIEGO — Vaccines that arrived on Tuesday in San Diego are being administered to health care workers throughout the county. The vaccinations are happening at UCSD Health and also at Kaiser Permanente Medical Centers in the afternoon.
San Diego's military hospitals are no exception. The Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton administered their first doses to those working in the hospital on Tuesday.
The first nurse vaccinated on base told News 8, "I was the first one. Feels like I have a small part in history. We have missions every day that need to get done. In order to complete the missions we can’t really move forward until we’ve all been vaccinated as a fleet so we can all go to work with peace of mind.”
All shipments of the first batch of doses for the Pfizer vaccine have made their way to San Diego County. By the end of the day on Wednesday, all locations that are holding the vaccine will have started administering and distributing it. In total the county received 28,000 doses that will serve as the first of two shots to 72% of the medical staff in the county. UCSD Health says the goal is to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible.
The vaccine arrived at a pivotal time as the county case rate hits the highest levels since the start of the pandemic. ICU bed numbers for Southern California as a whole have dropped down to below 2%.
According to the state, new doses could be arriving weekly going forward. Those doses will vaccinate the remaining 28% of health care workers.
Dr. Anthony Fauci cautions that despite these promising steps, wearing a mask and social distancing will not be going away anytime soon. Experts say the entire vaccine rollout likely won't be completed until the summer of next year.