Anonymous
By Dr. Henning Ansorg, M.D., FACP, Health OfficerCounty of Santa Barbara, Department of Public Health
Immunization with a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine is a critical part of the strategy to reduce COVID-19-related illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths and will help restore societal functioning in our communities.
Who Will Get the First Vaccines?
Because the initial supply of COVID-19 vaccine in the United States is limited, CDC is recommending that initial supplies of COVID-19 vaccine be offered to healthcare personnel and long-term care facility residents and staff.
While there is currently a limited supply of COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, the supply will increase substantially in the weeks and months to come.
The California Department of Public Health has created a priority list determining who will be able to get immunized during the next phases which will start by mid-January. The next group of people in line to be eligible will be people in critical infrastructure (teachers, firefighters, food workers, transportation), as well as persons 75 and older, and some younger people with certain chronic health conditions.
The exact list of phases of roll out of the vaccine is posted on Santa Barbara Public Health website: https://publichealthsbc.org/
Participating entities and providers who will be dispensing the vaccine include: Public Health POD’s (Immunization Points) in Santa Maria, Lompoc and Santa Barbara, as well as Urgent care clinics, Outpatient clinics (Sansum, Dignity, County Clinics, Neighborhood clinics, Central Coast Health Care Centers, as well as some private clinics) and Pharmacies.
Are the Vaccines Effective?
On December 11, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued the emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, to be distributed in the U.S. to individuals 16 years and older. The vaccine was 95% effective in preventing COVID-19 disease in clinical trials.
A second vaccine created by Moderna was approved on December 19 and showed to be 94% effective in their clinical trials.
Both vaccines require two doses to be fully effective.
Pfizer’-BioNtech’s second shot is given three weeks later; Moderna’s second shot is given 4 weeks after the first.
We have evidence that the vaccines are starting to protect from COVID-19 about 7 days after receiving the second dose.
Will There by Side Effects from the Vaccine?
Similar to other immunizations, some people may experience mild effects from the vaccine that usually last for 1-2 days. These include: soreness at injection site, headaches, fevers/chills or fatigue. In some cases, these vaccination effects may influence your ability to perform your daily activities for 1-2 days after injection.
It is important to note that one cannot get COVID-19 from the vaccine, nor will it cause you to test positive for the virus.
Will I have to wear a mask and keep social distance once I am vaccinated?
Until the CDC determines, that immunized persons cannot carry the virus in their respiratory tract, even though the virus does not make them sick, we will have to continue with social distancing and mask wearing. We anticipate having a definitive answer to this question by April.
Dr. Henning Ansorg, M.D., FACP is a graduate of Justus-Liebig-University Medical School Giessen, Germany. He completed Residency training in Munich, Germany and Tucson, AZ and is board certified in Family Practice (Germany) and Internal Medicine (USA). Dr. Ansorg is a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and is on the Medical Staff at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara. He has many years of experience in different clinical settings including 10 years of Private Practice and Urgent Care in Munich, Germany, as well as 11 years of Internal Medicine/Geriatrics in Arizona, as well as 4 years at the Santa Barbara County Health Care Center. Dr. Ansorg has served as Public Health Officer for Santa Barbara County since April 2019.
Vaccine refusers should be registered, and pay an extra healthcare tax to atone for their irresponsibility.
Dr Ansorg,
With all due respect, the New York Times published a map in today’s paper showing that the rate of immunization in California PER CAPITA is among the worst in the nation.
It’s one thing to have a plan, it’s another thing to implement it.
Why is California so slow to get this show on the road?
RHS are you in a group that is eligible? Honestly, the situation is ever changing and unless you are one of the groups up above then right now you’re not eligible for the vaccine. When it changes, which it will at some point, then that info will be released. Not sure why you think that Dr. Ansorg, or anyone else, should have answers for you that don’t yet exist.
Ansorg recommends the following link to determine when one might expect to receive the vaccine:
“The exact list of phases of roll out of the vaccine is posted on Santa Barbara Public Health website”: https://publichealthsbc.org/
So I checked out the website, and the information, as I suspected, is pretty vague.
“There are few details about registering for appointments at this time.
Please check the vaccine webpage as the home base for all public updates.
You may also receive messaging from your primary care provider when the vaccine becomes available to them.”
This is a bit of a bummer if, like me, you are uninsured and have no primary care provider. In fact, the entire private health care system is a bummer for all things COVID.
But it gets more interesting…
We are directed to a New York Times interactive link to “Find Your Place in the Vaccine Line”: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/03/opinion/covid-19-vaccine-timeline.html
You submit your age, the county you reside in, profession (essential or not), and COVID risk.
And wouldn’t you know it? I am right at the very end of the line!!! “In Santa Barbara County, you’re behind 364,300 others.” Grrreat!
So this is how they’re prioritizing people for the vaccine, in exact order:
Healthcare workers
Seniors in nursing homes
First responders
People with health risks
Other elderly
Essential workers
Teachers
Homeless
Prisoners
Young Adults
Children (under 18)
Other essential workers
Others
As a 55-year-old male, I am in the last category (“Others”). Now, I get that seniors, sick people, healthcare workers and some “essential” workers should go ahead of me. And I still need to be convinced that the lives of homeless people, not to mention thieves, rapists, and murderers, are more worthy of being saved than mine…
But what I do NOT understand is why a 55-year-old would be going AFTER young adults and children!!! Everything I have read on COVID clearly points to the fact that the older you are, the more likely you are to die from COVID, so this is inexplicable.
Dr. Ansorg???
Why would a young adult or a child go ahead of a 55 year old? What part of inexplicable do you not understand?
I would imagine anyone who qualifies for a disabled decal, like the ones they display on cars, would be deemed people with health risks.
Some risks are obviously less sympathetic than others, self-inlicted as a result of poor lifestyle choices: obesity, smoking-related emphysema, drug qnd alcohol-induced problems. But they’re risks nonetheless.
Who is and is not an “essentia”l worker is also highly problematic.
But these ethical dilemmas should have been ironed out months ago.
Seniority should be the most critical factor. Get the truly sickand critical healthcare workers innoculated first, then go in descending order based on age.
I respect your realism. I’ve done some damage to myself, and would not consider trying to get a vaccine before millions of others.
BUT —
Saying that these “ethical dilemmas should’ve been ironed out months ago” is simply laughable, because these are questions that have been debated for many decades!
Why should those who are “truly sick” be vaccinated? Aren’t they most likely to die from conditions other than Covid?
I hope I have been respectful and not given grounds for deletion. I am making a point by making an argument. These issues are deeply complicated and divisive and have not been answered in this or the past century. It’s just not that easy.
“Vaccine refusers should be registered, and pay an extra healthcare tax to atone for their irresponsibility.”
They should also be branded with a tattoo on their wrists and later be put into some kind of transportation like trains, and then be transported elsewhere so that we are all safe!
Well, we can continue to debate the ethical dilemmas until the cows come home. But the logistical problems (where the vaccine is going to be administered, how do you enroll people, who’s giving the shots, where the vaccines get stored, etc.) should have been ironed out months ago, and obviously there has been and is a failure of leadership, because the rollout is a miserable failure.
Van Do-Reynoso says the County has received 16,775 vaccines. A mere 600 have received the shot, but she hopes to get 5000 people inoculated by the end of the month. (Numbers quoted in https://www.independent.com/2021/01/08/santa-barbara-county-covid-cases-continue-to-soar-at-unprecedented-levels/)
Does anyone seriously think this rate of vaccination is anywhere near acceptable? It’s a disgrace.
Who cares about downvotes? Edhat doesn’t remove posts any more based on downvotes that I’ve seen. And I stopped caring about downvotes and likes about the same time I graduated from high school That was a while ago.
LOOSE CANNON: Unfortunately, those disabled stickers given by a physician are handed out like candy. I suspect that a fair percentage of those who have one, shouldn’t really have one.
Because we are being far too precious about getting the vaccine into arms. There is way too much concern that “someone who doesn’t deserve it” will get it, so we’re slow to act. Furthermore, bureaucrats are trying to hash out the further tiers with things like “racial justice” in mind, meaning they’re sitting around making charts of who deserves what based on their skin color, etc. Most of the red states said “we don’t care” in keeping with their more conservative leanings, and to their credit at distribution, they are doing much better than we are in terms of getting it done.
RHD, Ansorg cannot tell you this because they have absolutely no idea how they’re actually going to do any of this. It was “easy” to vaccinate healthcare workers – they are known employees of companies and signing them up was easily done within the workplace. How are they going to do this outside of institutional settings? They are privately freaking out because they know this is going to be a disaster, but they’re bluffing all of us acting like they have some plan to get this done. With all of the factors CA wants to weigh (like race, how absurd and evil), literally how are they going to get this done? Will there be racial purity tests to determine who is eligible? Even pre-existing conditions is a minefield. Who decides who has a worthy pre-existing condition? Should an obese person really take precedence over a person who takes care of their health? These questions are impossible to adjudicate and as such we should basically drop all of these factors as considerations. If we have a vaccine shortage, which we do and will continue to, it should be distributed by age tiers and that’s that. It’s the only thing we can verify. Even so, as you said, how will you be notified? How will people know it is their turn? Mass advertising campaigns? Giant drive throughs? I see no other possibilities but even that seems like it will be a mess given the continued shortage of actual vaccine for the forseeable future.
I completely agree with you, Loose. The downvotes here are shocking.
Might as well throw in people who don’t eat healthy or exercise. Smoke. Drink more than 1 drink a day. Ride bikes without helmets and speed in their car.
What you need to know is that California is now 49th in the nation, just ahead of Alabama, in % of available vaccines administered. Pathetic. Puerto Rico and America Samoa are doing a better job than California. Recall Newsom!
But our state has a Democratic governor, a super majority in the legislature, county supervisors, and city council. How could we possible be 49th? Not to mention our schools are still closed, highest homeless problem in the country, and we still can’t get EDD to the people that need it (but sent billions in EDD to prisoners) Hmm…. maybe single party rule isn’t such a good thing??? OH!!! but we’re only going to sell electric cars by 2035 and we only consumed oil drilled elsewhere, none of that dirtiness in our backyard!