When asked about the irregular methods Humboldt County people are using to get vaccine — showing up at a hospital and waiting in line without an appointment, for example, or scoring a dubious appointment through a friend — Dr. Ian Hoffman, Humboldt County’s health officer, said that Public Health is not in the business of policing whether or not local providers are following his own guidelines about who should be vaccinated at this stage of the pandemic and who should not yet be.
“Certainly some individuals are going to extreme measures to get vaccinated out of order,” Hoffman said. “We’ve said often that’s we’re not going to try to police that to a degree that slows down this process.”
That, plus questions on variants, the county’s new vaccination statistics, the return of sports, and opening up to people with co-morbidities — we still don’t have enough supply for that, Hoffman says — in today’s media availability.
Video above, rough transcript below.
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From the Times-Standard: The number of total doses administered is 26,789 on the county’s
dashboard but the number of individuals fully and partially partially vaccinated only adds
up to 19,415. Can you explain the discrepancy?
Sure, we’ve put on a dashboard that the number of individuals who are either partially or
fully vaccinated.
So if you take the individuals who are fully vaccinated, they receive two doses, so you’d
have to multiply that number by two and add the two numbers together, you’ll come up with
the full number.
From the Times-Standard: Does the county know if any residents of skilled nursing facilities
still need to be vaccinated?
Yeah, the skilled nursing facilities have mostly gone through the first two rounds of the partnership,
the CDC partnership, the third round for many of them are coming up this week, so that will
be their last visit, so there are some folks who are going to get their first shot in that
last visit, and then we’re working with the skilled nursing facilities and long-term care
facilities for a long-term plan of continuing to vaccinate any new residents who come in
and need to be vaccinated.
From the Times-Standard: Is the county making any safety recommendations for spectators
and outdoor prep sports events now that team sports have been allowed to resume?
So spectators are not allowed at any events for youth or adults.
What is allowed for the youth sports are age appropriate supervision, so an adult or potentially
multiple adults depending on the situation and the age, who could be there obviously
to supervise the the youth, but also transport them, be there in case of an injury something
like that, so we’re working closely with HCOE and Humboldt-Del Norte League to you know
define what that age appropriate supervision is and also I’m looking for clarification
from CDPH for more specifics on that.
From the Times-Standard: With athletes in high contact sports required to be tested
for COVID-19 weekly, is the county helping schools or HDNL participants acquire testing
kits?
Which agencies are responsible for acquiring testing kits for high schools and their athletes?
So we’ve been working closely with HCOE for testing in the schools and that testing can
also be extended to athletes at those schools.
There are also potentials for athletes to get tested through Optum site at Redwood Acres,
they could go to their private physician and there are two different types of tests that
can be offered.
There’s the PCR test, we’re also working with HCOE to implement antigen testing for schools
and then potentially for athletes as well.
From the Times-Standard: How long have HSU athletics and the county been planning for
their return to competition? How did HSU and the county collaborate on developing the athletic department’s return
to participation process?
So collegiate athletics is governed by NCAA and they have a set of regulations similar
to the way CDPH has put forth regulations for youth and adult recreational sports, so
HSU has you know reviewed those and submitted a plan to Public Health for our review and
we collaborated and discussed those and so it’s been a collaborative process.
From the Times-Standard: Is the county helping HSU obtain testing kits for its frequent testing
requirements?
Yes we are supporting HSU in their testing.
From the Times-Standard: The dashboard currently states 3,151 is the total number of Humboldt
County residents who have tested positive for the virus. Are there any residents who have contracted COVID-19 more than once?
We’re not aware of anyone who’s contracted COVID more than once in Humboldt County.
There are very rare cases of this across the the globe.
There are a few people who’ve tested positive twice within a 90-day period but didn’t have
a re-infection and those are removed from the count.
From reporter Daniel Mintz: How likely do you think it is that the variant with the
L452R mutation will be categorized as a variant of concern?
I think more studies needed to determine that and so currently it remains as a variant of
interest.
From reporter Daniel Mintz: What is the scale of testing at this point?
We definitely know testing’s down both here in Humboldt County and statewide.
We have the capacity to test much much more, so continue to encourage people to get tested
and utilize that testing ability so that we can you know stay safe and hopefully continue
to stay in less restrictive tiers.
From the Redwood News: You’ve mentioned before that the next group eligible for a COVID-19
vaccine includes food and agriculture workers. Can you go into detail about who exactly falls into this category locally?
Does this include grocery store workers, restaurant workers? Also are you able to give the community any update on when that phase is expected to open up?
So yes, all those people mentioned fall into the food and agriculture workers, it also
includes the production side, so people who produce food you know both on a farm or in
a warehouse, large scale kitchens, there’s a huge, it runs the gamut.
I think that just like every phase that we’ve opened and how we open it, it will depend
entirely on the amount of vaccine that we have, so we’re hopeful that with Johnson and
Johnson coming in the coming weeks that we could see an expansion of the number of vaccines
that we’re getting each week.
We also know that the federal government has continued to promise to send more.
It looks like that is actually starting to happen in the next few weeks, so when we have
enough vaccine we’ll open up to more tiers.
From the Redwood News: The state has released guidance about opening up vaccine eligibility
to people 16 to 64 years old with certain medical conditions starting March 15th.
How exactly will this guidance be implemented locally? Does the county have enough supply or anticipate having enough supply to open up vaccinations to this larger group of people starting on that date?
I think it’s unlikely that we will have enough to cover everyone by the middle of March,
so it’ll be you know how it’s continued to be, which is when we open up to one group
we, you know, understand that there will be a waiting period for for some of those people.
But as it’s been the whole time we have to you know sort of time these openings so that
we don’t have too small of an eligibility pool, that we have vaccine appointments that
go unfilled, and and balance that with you know keeping the field broad enough that those
people can get, or sorry, narrow enough that those people can get an appointment.
As far as how it’s gonna work um we have been in discussions with the medical groups around
Humboldt County and for people who have medical conditions it’s you know most likely that
we’ll be working with medical providers to have them call those patients in based on
their medical records and doing outreach and then have some sort of referral system to
allow for people who don’t have access to a vaccination site through their primary care
provider or who don’t have insurance or or don’t have a primary primary care provider
here in Humboldt County to be able to be referred to a vaccination site.
From the Redwood News: CDPH has indicated they’ll be shifting to an age-based vaccination
plan after Phase 1B Tier 1. What does this shift or change mean for Humboldt County’s vaccination plan moving forward?
Are there or will there be any impacts on Phase 1B that is currently open?
There shouldn’t be any impacts on Phase 1B.
We’re going to continue to finish that off and you know in terms of what the shift means
it really means that after those occupations in Phase 1B, that everyone will be going through
the line based on their age and those will open up, we’re being told statewide, all at
the same time.
So that’s what we anticipate and we’ll be looking forward to.
From the North Coast News: A viewer messaged us recently concerned about cancelled vaccine
clinics due to vaccine shipments delayed by inclement weather.
Have all the people scheduled for those clinics been contacted to register for another clinic?
Has anyone missed their second dose of the vaccine due to those cancellations?
So Public Health has reached out to everyone who had their Public Health clinics cancelled
due to this delay.
We do recognize that some people were delayed in getting that second dose on time, but it
should still fall within the realm of acceptable based on the CDC guidelines.
From the North Coast News: Where does the county currently stand on allowing organized
youth and adult sports? Will the county be following the guidance issued by the CDPH or will you be setting
more strict requirements?
We are following the CDPH guidance that was set out last Friday and goes into effect tomorrow
and I would think that it’s really solid guidance and look forward to seeing youth and adult
sports getting back into action.
From the North Coast News: Where is the county currently at in terms of vaccinating the local
homeless population? What outreach if any has the county employed to contact elderly members of the homeless
population who may not be aware of their eligibility status?
We’ve been in planning meetings with homeless advocacy organizations to address these communities.
We have plans in place to begin vaccination of you know age-appropriate individuals in
that population and also working to you know try to vaccinate more broadly in the homeless
population once vaccine becomes more available.
From the North Coast News: Has Public Health considered prioritizing vulnerable populations
more at risk for contracting the virus like those experiencing homelessness and incarcerated
people, or will people in those groups have to wait until their age group is prioritized?
So incarcerated individuals are those who are in prison, are handled by the state Department
of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The staff who work in our local jails have been vaccinated, we have been in talks with
the jails about a potential vaccination plan for that population and I think this group
is definitely vulnerable and we recognize that and we want to vaccinate them, you know
we are just waiting for more vaccine to make that happen.
From the Lost Coast Outpost: By this point many or most people in Humboldt have heard
several first-hand stories of friends and neighbors getting the vaccine through unofficial
channels, for example by showing up and waiting in line at a clinic or hospital or be by being
put on a waitlist for extra doses through friends who work at such places.
Many people acquiring the vaccine in this way are not over 70 or over 65 and they’re
not employed in healthcare or education or emergency services this happens often enough
that some people believe that there are loopholes in the county’s guidelines and that if you
can put in time and effort or if you know someone you can get vaccinated now even if
your tier is not up. Can you convince them that this is not the case?
We are in the business of getting people vaccinated and so we are trying to do that in an orderly
fashion and as quickly and seamlessly as possible with the focus on the right populations at
the right time.
Certainly some individuals are going to extreme measures to get vaccinated out of order.
We’ve said often that’s we’re not going to try to police that to a degree that slows
down this process.
We encourage individuals and groups of individuals to follow this process and I think it’ll you
know go much more smoothly and we, you know we hope to be able to open up more broadly
to to other groups in the near future and we’ll continue to do so as vaccine allows.
From the Redheaded Blackbelt: Earlier this month Humboldt County announced that they
would begin reporting the number of antigen test results each weekday on the dashboard.
The number reported has remained at 13 for some time now. Are antigen tests not being used, or are there no positives, or is the dashboard not being updated?
The dashboard continues to get updated on a daily basis.
For a while there have not been any positive antigen tests, which is not surprising given
the drop in the test positivity rate, I do think they’re still being used, I know they’re
being used in many settings, so we’ll we’ll continue to watch that and I think you know
going forward the other things they might be used more often say in schools or other
surveillance settings, with the the sports leagues that are starting up, so we might
see that go up but again it’s because of the decrease in test positivity overall that we’re
seeing that number go down.