Sutter Health cancels or postpones 40,000 vaccination schedules for second-dose admissions, including at nine Northern California mass vaccination sites because it doesn’t have enough vaccine content, Sutter said Tuesday.
These discussions are scheduled to take place between now and March 9th. Sutter will also have to cancel or postpone an additional 50,000 vaccination dates scheduled for March 10 and later if it does not receive any more vaccinations from the state.
Sutter calls or emails affected patients to notify them and aims to reschedule discussions over the next seven to 10 days. If Sutter receives multiple vaccinations, you can avoid some deletions. The majority of affected patients are 65 years of age or older or health care workers. Sutter’s mass vaccination sites include the SF Market in Bayview.
“We urgently asked the state for the additional benefits needed to prevent the cancellation of more than 90,000 second-dose vaccination dates on our books,” Sutter spokesman Monique Binkley Smith said in a statement. “This is an extremely unfortunate situation for our patients and can be avoided by getting an additional supply of vaccines.”
People whose second dose date has been canceled or postponed by Sutter may try to make an appointment elsewhere to get their second shot, such as Walgreens, CVS, or another vaccination site. They must bring their vaccination card from the first dose so that the vaccinators know if they are being given a Pfizer or Moderna shot.
Pfizer and Moderna vaccines should be given, given or taken three or four weeks apart, but the CDC says the second dose can be given up to six weeks later.
Unreliable vaccination supply was a problem during the vaccination campaign. Some vaccination sites had to suspend first-dose appointments because they had to use their vaccine reserves to meet second-dose appointments for people who had received first-dose admissions a few weeks earlier. Healthcare providers and local health departments usually only get a few days notice of how many doses they are receiving. Last month, Kaiser had to cancel 5,200 vaccination appointments in Santa Clara County because it did not receive enough vaccinations.
Sutter was sure he would receive enough vaccinations from the state to meet his 40,000 second dose appointment, but he had not yet received the benefits requested. Vaccines were instructed to take as many doses as possible of the first dose and not to withhold the vaccine at the second dose, and to receive sufficient vaccine for the second dose at a later date.
The distribution of vaccines is largely handled by the state, which receives a distribution of vaccines from the federal government and decides how many doses will go to providers like Sutter and the county public health departments. There are some exceptions, such as some pharmacies that receive doses distributed directly from the federal government.
“Every county, every state, every country wants to get more vaccines, and that’s limited by production, but California continues to work closely with the Biden administration to increase the supply of providers across the country,” said Sami Gallegos, California’s Administration Ministry spokesman. Health COVID-19 Vaccine Working Group.
California’s Blue Shield, which handles the distribution of vaccines on behalf of the state, did not immediately answer the question of why Sutter’s vaccine distribution is cheaper than it asked for. Blue Shield CEO Paul Markovich told ABC 7 News that Sutter’s data “doesn’t get to the state clearly,” and that makes the state mistakenly believe for weeks that Sutter “has a high dose”.
“We’re going to pay a lot more doses to Sutter over the next few weeks so they can reschedule appointments instead of resigning,” Markovich said.
Catherine Ho is a fellow at the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @Cat_Ho
