Sonoma County begins receiving COVID-19 vaccines Thursday

The first shipments of a vaccine against COVID-19 are arriving in Sonoma County Thursday, a day after health officials announced a staggering new one-day record of 606 new cases of the disease.

Boxes containing 4,875 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine mark the first momentous step toward inoculating people against a virus that has devastated minority and elderly communities, forced businesses to close and indelibly changed daily life since the first case was detected more than nine months ago.

The boxes will be disseminated to six local hospitals in amounts relative to their size, Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase said Wednesday. The county will get doses to be allotted to health care workers at Aurora Santa Rosa psychiatric hospital, the county’s mental health crisis stabilization center, and some first responders included in the state’s priority list.

The imminent arrival of vaccines comes amid a continued rise in transmission of the novel coronavirus, including an uptick in infections at local long-term care facilities, according to Mase.

The county reported 606 new cases late Wednesday on its COVID-19 online dashboard, though details were not immediately available. The newly announced infections top the previous one-day high of 343, set on Dec. 1. The average number of new positive tests for COVID-19 for the last two weeks was 208, nearly double the average daily rate for the two weeks prior.

“These increases remind us that we are in the darkest days of the pandemic,“ Mase said. ”Nevertheless, we are really encouraged by the rollout this week of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine, which will give us a much needed tool to fight the pandemic.“

The first vaccines will go to people working in acute health care settings, such as workers in intensive care units, psychiatric hospitals and paramedics. Local hospitals are charged with determining who among the staff can be inoculated in this first round of vaccinations. State health officials have said health care companies should consider both the type of work a person does as well as any individual factors that makes them more vulnerable to infection, like age and health conditions.

The local hospitals to get the shipments include Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, Kaiser Permanente’s Santa Rosa Medical Center, Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital, Petaluma Valley Hospital, Healdsburg District Hospital and Sonoma Valley Hospital.

It was unclear how far these first doses would go toward protecting workers on the front lines of the pandemic at high risk for contracting the virus and spreading it to others.

The county late Wednesday could not provide details on the number of local workers who fall into this first priority group, but officials have said the initial shipment of vaccines will surely not be enough.

But it will be followed by another 2,925 doses from Pfizer expected Dec. 21. Also next week, the county expects to receive 5,800 doses of a vaccine made by Moderna if the company receives emergency approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Deputy Public Health Officer Kismet Baldwin said those are first doses for both vaccines, which both require a second inoculation to be fully effective. The county expects to receive second doses in separate shipments.

The availability of ICU beds across the Bay Area region dipped to 12.9% Wednesday, for the first time dropping below the state’s 15% benchmark for triggering new state restrictions on commercial activity and public life.

As a result, four counties — Napa, Solano, San Mateo and Santa Cruz — will impose shelter-in-place orders that take effect at the end of the day Thursday. The remaining counties in the region, including Sonoma County, had already put local stay-home rules into place to head off a surge in new infections.

Sonoma County’s ICU bed availability had increased to 35.4%, compared to last week when the average availability was around 10.5%. And 60% of the ventilators in the county were available and not in use, according to the county.

Health officials have said the number of ICU beds available is expected to fluctuate, depending on how many people become seriously ill with the coronavirus and other illnesses or accidents that bring people into intensive care.

Baldwin said the first shipments of the vaccine are not expected to go toward inoculating staff and residents of long-term care facilities, where elderly residents have experienced the greatest loss of life due to the virus.

Most local residential care and skilled nursing homes are instead enrolled in a federal program that will bring CVS and Walgreens pharmacy staff to vaccinate employees and residents at the facilities.

Baldwin said they expect that program to begin as soon as Dec. 28. The county will ensure any facilities not enrolled in the program receive doses through the county.

Between 20% and 25% of local skilled nursing facilities have active cases of COVID-19, according to county epidemiologist Kate Pack. The county expects to release more detailed information Thursday.

Baldwin said it was difficult to determine how many residents and employees of these types of facilities are in the county. They are licensed for just over 5,500 beds but there are vacancies and daily fluctuations.

Crista Barnett Nelson, executive director of Senior Advocacy Services, a local ombudsman program, said she had to stop a local surveillance program to determine a more precise number of long-term care patients and staff because two members of her staff learned they were exposed to people with COVID-19 during the effort.

Barnett Nelson said she is aware of 22 local facilities with some level of outbreak.

“This is a sizable increase, and we still remain very concerned for the safety of long-term care residents,” Barnett Nelson said Wednesday. “The vaccine is not here yet.”

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.