At a briefing Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom gave an update on the state's allotment of COVID-19 vaccines.
Newsom said California would administer some 2.1 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of December.
The state has already gotten the first 33,150 doses of the Pfizer vaccine — part of its initial 327,000-dose allotment, he said. Those doses were distributed to four locations across the state on Monday — including 2,000 doses to San Francisco General Hospital — and will be delivered to an additional 29 locations through Wednesday.
The governor also said he was informed last night that California would receive an additional 393,900 doses of the Pfizer vaccine as early as next week, and expects 672,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine by the end of December, pending its approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
In all, that amounts to nearly 1.4 million doses. It's unclear where the remaining 700,000 doses will come from — and the governor's office did not immediately respond to KQED's request for clarification. Both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses per person.
"This has been a very optimistic 48 hours," Newsom said at Tuesday's press briefing. "We're finally seeing the vaccine being utilized. We're finally seeing those we value the most [and] we've celebrated since the beginning of this pandemic, get that support — those emergency room docs and nurses."
As more doses continue to arrive in January, California plans to vaccinate roughly 3 million people — mostly front-line health care workers and residents at long-term care facilities — as part of its first round of vaccinations, called Phase 1A, Newsom said, characterizing the process as "a sprint, not a marathon."
The following round, Phase 1B, he said, will consist of about 8 million Californians, potentially including teachers, farm laborers and grocery workers. Specifically who will be included among that group is still being worked out by the state's advisory committee, Newsom said, noting that the group planned to meet Wednesday afternoon to discuss guidelines during a hearing that will be streamed online.
Additionally, he said, California has begun rolling out a sweeping vaccination outreach campaign, building off its 2020 census outreach, that's aimed at reaching across the state's tremendously diverse population, including the many historically disenfranchised communities who may be distrustful of the effort. Newsom said materials from the campaign will be translated into 13 languages.
"There is light at the end of the tunnel," Newsom said, repeating his oft-cited cliche. But, he added, gravely, "we're still in the tunnel."
The arrival of the vaccine, he said, will have little impact on the surge in new cases currently bombarding the state and projected to continue into the coming weeks. More than 32,000 new infections and 142 deaths were reported just yesterday, he said, noting that California has procured additional mobile morgues and body bags to accommodate the growing death toll.
Newsom also said fewer than 6% of intensive care unit beds in the state are now available, and spelled out several steps being taken to increase staffing and "stretch the resources," including relaxing nurse-to-patient ratios and decreasing quarantine times for those who have been exposed. The state, he said, has also hired several hundred contract health workers and is looking abroad for additional assistance.
"We're going through perhaps the most intense and urgent moment since the beginning of this pandemic," he said. "We're in the middle of the peak."
— Matthew Green (@mgreenkqed)