Mayers is committed to providing the community up to date information on the COVID vaccine. Here is the most recent information from Shasta County.
Vaccinate Update (Dec. 23): Due to the size of the state's population and the limited supply of vaccines, the COVID-19 Vaccination Program requires a phased approach. There are four vaccination phases planned, and Phase 1 has 3 levels (1a, 1b and 1c). Currently, Shasta County is in Phase 1a, Tier 1.
Phase 1a is a "jumpstart" phase that offers the first vaccine doses to health care workers and residents of long term care facilities. In Shasta County alone, there are nearly 14,000 health care workers. Health care workers are high priority because they risk being exposed to COVID-19 each day on the job and they sustain our medical services during this pandemic.
The county's COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force is working closely with the state and community partners to prioritize vaccine recipients and plan for administering future doses.
Right now, Shasta County is in Phase 1A of its vaccination rollout plan. Phase 1A is broken down into three tiers. Tier one, which is what the county is now, includes people who work in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and EMTs. Tier two includes people who work in outpatient substance abuse treatment facilities and behavioral health programs, to name a few. Tier three includes lab workers, dental offices, and other clinics. Shasta County has about 14,000 health care workers.
“Tier one also includes nursing care facilities and other long-term care facilities, and dialysis facilities,” said Amy Koslosky, a supervising community education specialist with the Shasta Health & Human Services Agency. “It will take a while to get through that group especially with the large health care population here.”
As more of the vaccine becomes available, the other phases will then be added to the list.
But because of the limited supply of the vaccine, the county is taking a phased approach to distribution. Shasta County Public Health says it will be a while to get through Phase 1A of the vaccination plan. The agency says it can take to a couple of weeks to even a few months.
Shasta County Public Health says that the more vaccines come in, the county will be able to move through its phases faster. Between Moderna and Pfizer, Shasta County received more than 4000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. Shasta County Public Health says it expects the general public will be able to receive the vaccine sometime next year.