Santa Clara County could qualify for transition into the yellow tier according to California’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy, but there are vaccine distribution disparities among residents, health officials said in a Tuesday board of supervisors meeting livestreamed on Facebook.
Dr. Sara Cody, the county’s health officer and public health director, presented coronavirus case and transmission rates, showing the county is in a better position as rates are flattening.
“When we look at the case rate by county section, we can see that the case rates are declining everywhere,” Cody said during the meeting.
A transition to yellow tier requires the county's infection rate to fall below 1% per every 100,000 residents.
She added that Gilroy, south Santa Clara County and East San Jose have the highest case rates.
There are currently 7,444 reported COVID-19 cases in Gilroy as of March 31. Cases totaled 115,266 in Santa Clara County as of Tuesday, with 102 new confirmed cases within the “past few days,” according to the county’s COVID-19 dashboard.
Distribution disparities
Despite flattened rates, Cody said the county still faces many challenges moving forward, including disparities in COVID-19 case rates by race and ethnicity.
“The disparities [by race and ethnicity] are closing, rates in all groups have been decreasing, but still the Hispanic/Latino population case rates do remain elevated among other groups as they have throughout the pandemic,” Cody said.
In Cody’s presentation, she said there were about 170 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 Hispanic/Latinx residents in early January.
She also said case rates per 100,000 residents for all racial groups are lower than 10 as of March 29.
Cody said other challenges include low vaccine supply, a decrease in COVID-19 testing rates and an ongoing vaccine hesitancy.
“The state has told us that as of April 15, we will expand to include all adults 16 years of age and older to be eligible for [the] vaccine,” Cody said. “And again, we hope that there will be sufficient supplies.”
A total of 2,390,530 vaccine doses were allocated by the federal government to California this week and 71,900 of those doses were allocated to Santa Clara County, said Dr. Martin Fenstersheib, the county’s COVID-19 testing officer, during his presentation on vaccine allocation.
Fenstersheib said of the 71,900 doses, 35,100 were Pfizer, 17,200 were Moderna and 19,600 were Johnson & Johnson.
The number of Pfizer and Moderna vaccine doses only slightly increased compared to last week, but the amount of Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine doses increased by 16,500 doses this week, according to Fenstersheib’s presentation.
Otto Lee, Santa Clara County’s District 3 supervisor, said while there’s more to be done to reach herd immunity and curb the pandemic, it's “good to be able to see the data and track along with it.”
Variant threats
Cody said although decreasing rates are encouraging, COVID-19 variants pose another threat.
“We're really on the lookout for variants that cause habits in one way or another, either they spread more easily or they cause people to be more sick or somehow they escape the therapies or vaccines that have been designed for them,” Cody said.
Dr. Ahmad Kamal, the county’s director of health care systems, said during the meeting the “variants’ job” to “adapt and change” continuously.
Kamal said COVID-19 variants might begin attacking younger age groups, which appears to be possible with the variant first identified in the United Kingdom because it’s transmitted easier.
However, he said it’s currently unclear how the variants are changing given the total number of hospitalizations aren’t increasing, but that could easily be the impact of older residents getting vaccinated.
