County health officials see red tier on horizon

Not enough vaccine supply from the state continues to plague the county in its efforts to vaccinate all residents, and the results are rippling through the county. But a bright spot may be on the horizon, county officials said on Friday, March 5.

“I am happy to report that Sonoma County’s metrics for the first time show that we are on course to move into the Red Tier within the next two weeks. I say ‘on course’ because I want to emphasize we are not in the Red Tier at the moment, we are still in the Purple Tier, but we are en route to get to a better place very soon,” said Susan Gorin, 1st District Sonoma County supervisor.

If Sonoma County stays “at or below current levels” between now and March 16, the county should be able to move into the Red Tier, which would open up more of the economy, specifically in dining, gyms and movie theaters.

The vaccination supply does cast a shadow over the good news of a potential move into a less-restrictive tier, officials said.

“We continue to receive disappointing news from the state about our vaccination allocation. Even as we ramped up our capacity to rapidly get shots into arms, the supply the state sends us continues to remain flat,” Gorin said.

The flattened level of supply caused the Sonoma County Office of Education (SCOE) to cancel its clinic this week for people who would have received their first doses. SCOE said it requested “nearly 4,000 vaccines” but received 1,100, “the amount necessary to provide second doses to school employees who already received their first dose,” wrote Steve Herrington, Sonoma County superintendent of schools in a letter to school districts on March 5.

It is unclear at this point if the supply allocation will have an effect on Sonoma Valley Unified School District’s plan to reopen transitional kindergarten through second grade classrooms, which is planned for starting on March 29.

Dr. Urmila Shende, Sonoma County vaccine chief, said more than 75 percent of the county’s residents aged 75 and older have received at least one dose, and 33 percent of the same age group is fully vaccinated.

In the 70- to 74-year-old population, about 60 percent have received at least one dose. Of the eligible population – that includes the older age groups, health care workers, agriculture and education employees – more than 27 percent have received one dose of vaccine.

“The bad news is that our allocation next week is going to be flat once again with just 7,700 doses. This means that as with this week we will be administering mostly just second doses at county supported clinics,” she said.

The county is allocating the supply largely toward those who need a second dose. Included in the allocation is 1,700 doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which requires one injection, not two as do the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. That does allow the county to administer vaccines to unvaccinated eligible residents.

Dr. Sundari Mase, Sonoma County’s chief health officer, said the county continues to “inch” forward to the Red Tier, the less restrictive tier in California’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy.

“Our metrics are low enough to qualify us for the Red Tier. Our overall testing positivity has dropped to 3 percent and our testing positivity in the lowest quartile of the Healthy Places Index is now 4.9 percent, down from 5.2 and 5.5 percent” during the week of March 1, Mase said.

If those numbers hold for two weeks from the start date of Tuesday, March 2, “for a full two weeks” the county can move into the Red Tier, which means opening up more businesses such as gyms and movie theaters.

“Our adjusted daily case rate per 100,000 continues to decline and that’s really the good news,” she added. If the daily transmission per 100,000 rate hits seven, “that would be another way for the county to qualify for the Red Tier,” Mase said.

Another possibility for the county to advance lies in the way California plans to adjust the metrics. Once it has distributed two million vaccines “to residents in the communities hardest hit by COVID… We would only need an adjusted case rate of 10 per 100,000 per day to move into the Red Tier,” she said.

The mitigation measures against COVID-19 transmission are “paying off,” Gorin said.

Officials urge residents to continue practicing the mitigation measures such as wearing masks, avoiding large gatherings and getting tested, to help the county’s metrics move in the direction of less-restrictive measures.

Shende said the transfer of vaccine distribution to Blue Shield, which took place for Sonoma County starting Sunday, March 7, will occur in phases throughout the rest of the month.

“We’re told this will be a phased transition and we’re told to operate as business as usual for now. In fact we’re not expecting to be fully under the third-party administrator until the end of the month.”

Officials are encouraging residents to register with MyTurn.ca.gov to be notified of when they are eligible to be vaccinated. Shende said it is “not fully operational” yet, but it is the direction the state is moving and the best way to be notified of vaccine opportunities in the future.

Contact Anne at anne.ernst@sonomanews.com.