Name: ‘We are flying blind’: Bay Area politicians say they’re in dark about vaccine rollout
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‘We are flying blind’: Bay Area politicians say they’re in dark about vaccine rollout

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateAs residents wonder where and when they can get vaccinated, some Bay Area officials are getting inundated with calls and emails from constituents, many of whom are angry at the slow rollout and confused about the process.But local politicians said their hands are largely tied as they wait for the state health department and private providers to give them more information on how many doses they have — and how quickly they can distribute them to eligible populations.California has fallen woefully behind almost every other state in its pace of vaccinations. The state has received about 2.5 million doses so far. As of Tuesday, fewer than 900,000 had been given. California has administered 2,256 doses of vaccine per 100,000 people, while states at the top have vaccinated more than twice that.Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan said she has received a lot of complaints from residents about the vaccine rollout plan, particularly from people in senior living facilities who haven’t been vaccinated yet.“We are not responsible for how they are administering the vaccine and short of a concerted organized effort by the state to do that, it’s very, very staggered,” she said. “I share the disappointment of our residents.”In addition to Chan, San Francisco Supervisors Hillary Ronen, Matt Haney and Rafael Mandelman, Richmond Mayor Tom Butt, Oakland City Council members Rebecca Kaplan, Dan Kalb and Loren Taylor, and Berkeley City Council member Sophie Hahn have all said they’ve received complaints from constituents about the lack of information.State lawmakers, getting pressure, are frustrated. At least 47 state lawmakers signed a letter Wednesday asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to provide a “reliable forecast” of how many doses California can expect in the next month and weekly updates.“We are all aware of the limited number of vaccines that have been made available to the states,” they wrote. But a plan for a “more effective and efficient rollout” is needed.Some Bay Area lawmakers have begun exploring what they can do to smooth out the process, though amid a nationally limited vaccine supply and constantly shifting state and federal regulations, their power is limited.“What we need is simplicity and convenience and, at the moment, we have neither,” said Joe Simitian, a member of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. “We are flying blind.”Several Bay Area politicians reached Wednesday likened the vaccine rollout to the early days of the pandemic, when there was anxiety and uncertainty around how people could get tested and access basic personal protective equipment.They shared a similar list of woes in their counties, including a lack of leadership from the federal government and constantly changing protocols and guidelines from the state. But the crux of the confusion for many was that the state has allocated doses directly to large regional health providers, like Kaiser and Sutter Health, but hasn’t shared data on those allocations with counties. That process, they said, has made it difficult for local health departments to determine exactly how many doses are actually within each individual county.The Santa Clara Board of Supervisors unanimously passed legislation this week, co-sponsored by Simitian, that will require large health care systems in the county to produce plans and timelines for vaccine distribution. The county health department also issued a directive that requires providers, and the county itself, to provide a detailed plan by Feb. 1.Members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors said Wednesday that they are interested in pursuing a similar effort.Supervisor Catherine Stefani proposed a resolution Tuesday that urged “all entities that provide COVID-19 vaccinations to San Francisco residents to report their vaccination data,” including Kaiser, Sutter and UCSF.She also urged the Department of Public Health “to use any legal mechanism to obtain complete and accurate vaccination data from all vaccine providers.”Coronavirus PandemicA spokeswoman for the health department said it is working on getting the data, as well as partnering with the health care providers to “ensure an efficient and equitable distribution of vaccine.” Local officials have complained that they are left in dark about how many doses they are going to get week to week from the state.“With such limited data and such limited answers, what I feel frustrated with is that I can’t evaluate how the program is going,” said Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who oversees the Mission, a largely Latino district that has been particularly hard hit by the virus. “And that is a failure of the state.”Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.The sputtering vaccine rollout comes as the Bay Area experiences a staggering surge in COVID-19 cases, limited ICU beds, increased deaths and a protracted shutdown that has ravaged the economy.The state is working on speeding vaccine distribution: Newsom loosened the state guidelines Wednesday to allow those 65 and older to receive the vaccine. But it’s unclear how and when the newly eligible population will be able to get vaccinated.A California health department spokesperson said the state is working to improve its process by creating a website and call center so people have a better sense of when they are eligible for a vaccine — but those won’t launch until at least next week.But the state health department said it doesn’t plan to change the current process for sending vaccines to localities and hospitals.Taylor, the Oakland council member, said he has also received a lot of questions from his constituents about the vaccine rollout. In response to the growing concern from residents, Kalb, also an Oakland council member, said he plans to have the Alameda County health department make a public presentation at a February council meeting on distribution plans.The hunger for information is so great in Alameda County that the county health department website with vaccination information crashed Wednesday afternoon because so many people tried accessing it. To try to speed up the process, county officials are also discussing whether to move contact tracing staff to handle vaccine distribution.David Canepa, president of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, praised his county’s response and how quickly it has been able to scale up its distribution, but said the looming problem is that when the county runs out of its current batch of doses — he doesn’t know when they will get more.“You can administer the doses at a very rapid rate,” he said. “But if you run out of doses that’s an issue.”Trisha Thadani and Sarah Ravani are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: , Twitter: ,Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateAs residents wonder where and when they can get vaccinated, some Bay Area officials are getting inundated with calls and emails from constituents, many of whom are angry at the slow rollout and confused about the process.But local politicians said their hands are largely tied as they wait for the state health department and private providers to give them more information on how many doses they have — and how quickly they can distribute them to eligible populations.California has fallen woefully behind almost every other state in...

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Trisha Thadani is a City Hall reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle. She previously covered work-based immigration and local startups for the paper’s business section.  Thadani graduated from Boston University with a degree in journalism. Before joining The Chronicle, she held internships at The Boston Globe, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and was a Statehouse correspondent for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/author/trisha-thadani/

Trisha Thadani

Sarah Ravani

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‘We are flying blind’: Bay Area politicians say they’re in dark about vaccine rollout

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