No Appointments Needed At San Diego County Vaccination Sites

Speaker 1: 00:00 People who've been struggling with the web to get a vaccination appointment. Now have a new option. You can just walk up to a site and get in line. San Diego County is now offering walk up no appointment vaccinations at some County vaccination sites. This does not yet apply to private health care sponsored vaccination sites. That news coupled with the fact that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is being administered again in San Diego, gives a boost to the county's overall vaccination picture. And joining me is KPBS health reporter, Matt Hoffman. Hey Maureen. Great to be here. So, uh, refreshing over and over again for that elusive vaccine appointment. Can now be a thing of the past. Are the County vaccination walk up appointments as simple as they sound? Speaker 2: 00:48 Yes. Um, and County officials are describing it as people can now show up at a County hosted clinic and get vaccinated without an appointment, but there's sort of a catch, there's a limited number of daily shots that are available for people without appointments. And it's only limited to they, they described it as County hosted sites. Um, and so we're not talking about even County sponsored sites, which include like some of those super stations, you know, Del Mar super station, uh, the superstitions that sharp has in Lamesa, um, down in there in the South Bay, Chula Vista, uh, those are not on the list. Uh, we're talking about 20 of these like sort of smaller pods of some people might be familiar with like the Linda Vista vaccination site, um, at the university of San Diego of the Martin Luther King community center in national city, um, up in Oceanside, the North coastal LivWell center. Um, and then some of these mobile vaccination pods also keep in mind too, if you are going to go to one of these sites, some of them are only on specific days, like Tuesday through Thursday or Tuesday and Wednesday. So make sure you check before you go and show up Speaker 1: 01:42 And people can still get appointments at all County sites that they want to. Right, Speaker 2: 01:47 Right. Correct. Yeah. There, they are still offering appointments. This is just sort of like an added bonus. Um, but keep in mind, there is a limited number of doses. Speaker 1: 01:55 What about lines and wait times for people who just show up, do we have any idea what those will be? Speaker 2: 02:00 Uh, we, we don't have any idea what those will be. I mean, it sort of vary by sites and sort of vary by, you know, what the demand is, which we know has been incredibly high. Um, just recently they hosted a one day vaccination event, um, over at Southwestern college that I was at. Um, and they were having to turn people away. Um, they had about 400 doses there. Um, and, and they said that that was encouraging. It it's good that the demand for vaccines is still high. What's interesting is when we're going to see that plateau, right. Once supply is going to overtake demand, which, you know, some are estimating that could be, you know, really, really soon in a week. It could be four weeks. We just really don't know Speaker 1: 02:33 Talking about supply. Oh, let's talk about the end of this. Pause on the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. What does that add to our vaccine supply? Speaker 2: 02:43 Yeah, it sort of described as a useful tool in the toolkit here in San Diego, you know, using it, uh, to vaccinate a lot of vulnerable populations. You know, people who are unsheltered, uh, people who are out there living on the streets, um, but also, you know, areas that are hard to reach. And actually, uh, just today talking with Cal fire, San Diego, um, they have that operation collaboration where they go to rural areas, you know, Borrego Springs, uh, out there and Fallbrook different places. Um, starting tomorrow, they are going to start a readministered that J and J um, they were using some Madonna and Pfizer doses, uh, during the J and J pods, but that meant that they had to go back to these rural areas again, you know, in three or four weeks now they can just do one and done. Um, so definitely a lot of organizations looking forward to getting the, the versatility back that the J and J vaccine offers. Speaker 1: 03:26 Are there any groups of people who are being advised, maybe not to get the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, Speaker 2: 03:32 Not specifically the federal regulators, they did put like a notice on, like when you, when you go to get a vaccine, a COVID-19 vaccination, they give you some papers that you're supposed to read. There is a notice on there, uh, with, with some more information about, you know, sort of this, these rare blood clotting, um, uh, you know, just a few cases were reported out of, you know, more than 8 million of vaccinations. Um, but you know, health officials are encouraging people that they do have questions to consult, you know, directly with their provider about, you know, what shot may be best for them. Speaker 1: 04:00 And is San Diego's case rate of new and COVID infections continuing to fall? Speaker 2: 04:05 Yeah. I mean, if we, if we look like, you know, uh, like what it was in October of last year, you know, around 3%, and now, you know, the 14 day rolling average of cases, testing positive about 1.7%, it is continuing to fall. Um, if you just look at like the last month, the daily number of cases reported can kind of fluctuate, you know, from 400 to 100 to 200 to 300, um, and County officials, County health officials have said that that isn't as concerning now, especially with the amount of people who are being vaccinated now, you know, 50% of San Diego who are eligible Speaker 1: 04:34 And what's the county's vaccination goal Speaker 2: 04:37 As a goal of getting 75% of County residents, 16 and over that's a little over 2 million people vaccinated. It used to be 70% the state up the end of the 75%. So the County followed suit, um, and the County says that they're about 70% of the way to that goal in terms of first doses, about halfway there for people who are fully vaccinated, uh, interesting number we're approaching a million County residents, uh, that are fully vaccinated. Um, and in total, not to throw too many numbers out there at you, but, um, you know, 2.8 million doses have been delivered just in San Diego County alone. Speaker 1: 05:11 I've been speaking with KPBS health reporter, Matt Hoffman, Matt. Thank you. Thanks Maureen.