CALIFORNIA, USA — The rollout to bring the coronavirus vaccine to all American's isn't moving at the pace many hoped it would, not only in California but across the country.
In San Diego County, specifically, less than 30% of health care workers and those in nursing homes -- in Tier 1A -- have received a dose. Governor Newsom and state health leaders have acknowledged the slow pace, saying improvements are coming. "We are working aggressively to accelerate our pace. We've said this from day one. It's like a flywheel first 10, 15 days, we're going to slowly start building pace, going to start building and you're going to start seeing that more rapid distribution of this vaccine. I can assure you of that... We want to see 100% in people's arms."
California's Health and Human Services Secretary, Dr. Mark Ghaly added, "Making sure that we're focused on empowering our vaccinators to do more on this front is going to be the key that helps us increase no matter where we are."
Across the state of California, only 35% of the doses received have actually been administered.
Governor Newsom says his team is working to create more vaccine distribution sites and to get more people prepared to administer the vaccine. Newsom is also asking the legislature for $300 million to support vaccine efforts.
Next in line -- Tier 1B -- will include those 75 and older, as well as many essential workers like teachers. The second part of Tier 1B includes those 65 and older, plus people experiencing homelessness and people in prisons.
On Wednesday, the California Vaccine Advisory Committee will meet to review public comments and discuss specifics of Tier 1B and 1C. That will include which essential workers and which teachers specifically will be part of Tier 1B.
Tier 1C, the third tier overall, will then be people who are 50 and older plus those younger with underlying medical conditions.
After those three tiers have had their doses administered, the general public will be next. The timing on that is still entirely unclear, but most experts say to expect it sometime in the late Spring, to early summer.