When, how can Fresno residents expect to get COVID booster shots? Here’s what we know
With the recommendation Wednesday from the Biden administration for adults already vaccinated against COVID-19 to receive booster shots, it’s only a matter of time before the general public in Fresno County will be able to get a third shot.
The latest federal recommendation indicates that the booster shots would be available to adults the week of Sept. 20 — although the details of how they will be rolled out are still being discussed locally.
There are indications, however, that Fresno County may set up a temporary mass-vaccination site in September to handle an expected increase in demand for third doses among the already-vaccinated public.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last week already issued a recommendation that people with compromised immune systems get a third dose of vaccine to bolster their immune response to the coronavirus. The newest advice from the White House indicates that the broader public will be able to seek third doses eight months after their second dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine products.
In Fresno County and much of the rest of the country, the first shots of vaccine were provided in mid-December and, for the first month, afforded largely to front-line hospital and health care workers.
Over the intervening months, vaccine eligibility was expanded to first-responders such as police and firefighters; senior citizens; teachers; farm workers and other workers in the food industry, including grocery and restaurant workers; and eventually to everyone else, first adults over the age of 18 and, in May, to children over the age of 12.
More on booster shots timeframe
Among the general public, those who would be first eligible include residents who received their second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine a minimum of eight months ago. That would mean people who were fully vaccinated by mid-January would be eligible in September.
At that point in the pandemic in January, fewer than 8,000 people – mostly hospital workers including doctors, nurses and staff and other front-line medical workers – were fully vaccinated with two doses in Fresno County.
In the early stages of the vaccine rollout, there was limited availability of doses. That proved frustrating to county health leaders, as demand far exceeded supply. The Fresno County Department of Public Health even had to put its largest vaccination clinic at the Fresno Fairgrounds on hold for a time in January because too few vaccine doses were available.
That’s not the case now, however. Since April, demand for vaccines plateaued and then diminished. Nine months into the drive to get shots into arms to stem the spread of COVID-19, almost half of Fresno County’s population of more than 1 million residents have yet to receive even one dose of a vaccine.
In late June, the county demobilized its large-scale vaccine clinics at the fairgrounds and elsewhere, instead focusing on mobile clinics and pop-up events in neighborhoods and communities that have lagged in the percentage of residents getting their shots.
Representatives with the Fresno County Department of Public Health did not respond to queries from The Bee about the early stages of planning for a rollout of booster doses, including when residents here might expect to start getting the third shots or what process the county may follow.
Third doses are being encouraged now because research indicates that the potency of the protection afforded by the vaccines can diminish over time, particularly with the increase in new cases from the delta variant of the virus and “breakthrough” infections by the variant among people who are already fully vaccinated.
Already getting the boosters
Some vaccine providers across Fresno County are already giving third-dose booster shots to people who fall under the CDC’s recommendation for those with compromised immune systems. On Saturday, after the CDC’s recommendation, the vaccination clinic operated by the UCSF Fresno’s COVID-19 Equity Project was accepting qualifying patients for the booster shots, said Dr. Kenny Banh, the program’s director.
“We’ve been doing a handful, literally five to 10 a day,” Banh said of third doses. A limiting factor was that the state’s MyTurn system to register for vaccination appointments was not set up yet to acknowledge third doses – a problem that wasn’t solved until Thursday.
By the time Sept. 20 rolls around, “I think it will go smoother because the date has been set ahead of time,” Banh told The Bee on Thursday. “Since we have a month to prepare, I think everyone will be ready to go on Sept. 20; that’s my prediction.”
Pending FDA approval that is expected by early September, Banh added, “that means we’ll be ready to go with third doses for everyone who got at least Pfizer” by mid-January.”
Banh said that on Thursday, Fresno County assistant health department director Joe Prado told vaccine providers that “he was going to plan to open another mass vaccination site, at least temporarily, on Sept. 20.”
Currently, the UCSF Fresno project is the only mass vaccination site in the central San Joaquin Valley that’s routinely doing more than 100 vaccinations a day, Banh said. “So we’ll stay in business, but the plan is, for at least a week or two or whatever is needed in a surge, there will another outlet for vaccines.”
Vaccine providers are already seeing an increase in demand in recent weeks thanks to concern over the highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19, as well as a growing number of agencies and employers who are requiring their workers to either get vaccinated or have regular testing.
The UCSF program had seen its numbers fall to as low as 70 or 80 shots a day earlier this summer, “but then all of a sudden we’re back up,” Banh said. “We broke 250 shots a day recently, and we hadn’t done that in a couple of months.”
Retail pharmacies partnering with the federal government on providing vaccines nationwide are also expected to offer the booster shots once the guidance receives an official recommendation from the CDC and an approval decision from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.
“As we await further guidance and approval from regulatory agencies, we’re fully prepared to play a leading role in providing booster shots this fall,” national pharmacy chain CVS said in a statement issued Wednesday.
The company added that it immediately began offering booster shots to immunocompromised people as soon as it was authorized to do so following the CDC recommendation.
Walgreens, another major pharmacy chain, said it too will follow the direction of the FDA and CDC in offering booster shots.
In its statement, the company said that while the third-dose shots are not yet available in its stores, it feels “confident we have the pharmacy expertise, infrastructure and local community presence to accelerate access to these vaccinations.”
