So I was just on a conference call where Dr. Mark Ghaly, CA's HHS director, explained how the vaccination/covid plan is changing. The short version is:
They're doubling vaccine allocation for communities in the lowest quartile of the Healthy Places Index.
Those communities have 25% of the population, but 40% of deaths/cases.
But they're seeing half the vaccination rates of communities in he top quartile (16% vs 34%).
Those communities have 25% of the population, but 40% of deaths/cases.
But they're seeing half the vaccination rates of communities in he top quartile (16% vs 34%).
They're also tying restrictions to vaccination rates.
When they get to 2 million doses in these communities, the threshold for being in the less restricting "red tier" moves from 7 cases per day to 10.
At 4 million, orange and yellow tiers shift, too.
When they get to 2 million doses in these communities, the threshold for being in the less restricting "red tier" moves from 7 cases per day to 10.
At 4 million, orange and yellow tiers shift, too.
This makes a lot of sense on paper.
The harder question with it is whether they can target this much vaccine (they also have educator set-asides, now) and keep up the speed of vaccinations.
How much is supply the problem? How much is vaccine skepticism? Ties to health system?
The harder question with it is whether they can target this much vaccine (they also have educator set-asides, now) and keep up the speed of vaccinations.
How much is supply the problem? How much is vaccine skepticism? Ties to health system?
That said, so many of the cases, hospitalizations, essential workers, and deaths are in these communities that if you can't accelerate vaccination here, you can't get statewide numbers down fast enough.
It's not wealthy, healthy people working from home who drive the numbers.
It's not wealthy, healthy people working from home who drive the numbers.
Behind all of this is the question of supply. If supply expands by as much as some believe it will over the next month, you can double allocations for these communities and also expand for others. If supply doesn't come through, there'll be a lot of fighting.
But the hard problem here continues to be what do you do when you have supply and you need to reach people who aren't sure about the vaccine. It's (relatively) easy to match supply and demand. It's harder to match supply and skepticism.
One hope is that if you just get more vaccines into these communities, leading to more vaccinations, it'll increase the number of people who know someone who got vaccinated, and that'll make their networks more comfortable, too. Familiarity/social pressure matters here.
Money and personnel for distribution and outreach would help with all this, of course. So would more testing, so we have better insight into what's going on. Pass the American Rescue Plan!
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1367533565639077889
Here's the Healthy Places Index, if you want to see the methodology or where your community falls: healthyplacesindex.org
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