Solano County officials said they’ve had to scale back their efforts to vaccinate residents from the coronavirus following a “steep decline” in the number of first doses the state has sent to the county over the past two weeks.
The county issued a plea Monday asking the California Department of Public Health to allocate more of the COVID-19 vaccine, claiming the number of doses provided to the county has dropped by 60 percent.
“We’ve seen a significant decline in the allocation of vaccine to the County in recent allocations,” Solano County Health Officer Dr. Bela Matyas, said in a statement released by the county. “The lack of adequate supply has caused us to pause scheduling many first-dose mass-vaccination clinics, drastically slowing our effort to target and vaccinate our most vulnerable populations.”
Darrel Ng, spokesman for the state’s Covid-19 Vaccine Task Force, disagreed, stating that the “first dose vaccine supply has increased 31.5 percent between 3/14 and 3/21.”
Solano County Supervisor Monica Brown said the state was not treating Solano County fairly.
“Solano County is still considered like the red-headed step child,” said Brown. “We need all the doses we can get to protect our seniors, medical workers, and educators.”
Brown confirmed the Board of Supervisors will be sending a letter to local elected leaders asking that they step in and help get more doses allocated to Solano.
County officials argue that Solano is “receiving substantially less vaccine allocation than all other similar sized counties, many of which have higher median household incomes.” They point to Monterey County which has received 17,100 more doses of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccine than Solano County in the past five weeks, officials said.
“We want to continue getting these critically needed vaccines in people’s arms,” said John Vasquez, chair of the Board of Supervisors, in a statement released by the county. “We have the partnerships, infrastructure and demand, we just don’t have the vaccine that we need. My colleagues and I on the Board of Supervisors will be making phone calls and sending a letter to the Governor’s Office and our elected representatives, urging them to help us secure more vaccine.”