Humboldt County Public Health Department continues to navigate Covid-19 vaccine supply shortage

Link

Embed

Copy and paste this HTML code into your webpage to embed.

HUMBOLDT COUNTY, Calif. (KIEM) –Humboldt County has more people eligible for a Covid-19 vaccine right now than the current supply allows. Forcing the Public Health Department to make some tough decisions while still following the State’s guidance for distribution.

“We have to balance a lot of priorities and there’s really it’s a zero-sum situation at this point because when you give a vaccine to one person, you’re taking it away from another person. Very difficult decisions; were weighing the risk of disease with societal function and getting us back to a normal existence,” according to Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman.

There has been no change in the supply chain. The County continues to receive 1,000 to 2,000 first doses with the matching second doses each week. There has been no decline in that number, but Hoffman is hopeful that it could grow in the future.

“There could be a small increase with some of the efforts that are being done at the federal level. So we’re anticipating that could be the case and we continue to plan for each week when we get our allocation numbers we look at those and we start to plan out the clinics for the following week,” Hoffman adds.

According to Hoffman, the County has used all of the vaccine it has and continues to wait for new shipments each week. More information on local vaccines can be found at www.humboldtgov.org.