covid-19 vaccine

Twelve-year-olds are tween-agers, staring down puberty and middle school, surprisingly mature one minute and tortured by angst the next.

Some also are scientific pioneers, volunteering for clinical trials to test COVID vaccines in children. Slowly and gingerly, researchers are testing COVID-19 vaccines in younger and younger kids — even as millions of doses are pushed into the arms of their parents — with an eye toward FDA approval in the next year or two.

“People try to minimize how sick kids get with COVID, but that’s a mistake,” said Brigham C. Willis, senior associate dean for medical education and professor of pediatrics at UC Riverside’s School of Medicine. “I work intensive pediatric care, and there’s a minority who get extremely ill. There are some deaths. It’s not a non-entity.

“And even though a large majority of kids won’t get extremely ill, they can still contract and spread it. To get control of the pandemic, you have to vaccinate both adults and children.”

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SACRAMENTO, Calif — Public health experts are trying to do the most good they can with the first batches of COVID-19 vaccine coming in.

The first doses are being set aside for people in places like hospitals and nursing homes, and as more doses come in, more people will qualify either by age, occupation, or health conditions.

“Right now, we have a huge demand, much more than the vaccine that is coming in,” said Dr. Olivia Kasirye, Sacramento County Public Health Officer.

When it comes to a rollout for the general public, Dr. Kasirye said the county is hoping to get to that point by spring.

For now, the focus is on making sure that the county gets through the initial batch of vaccinations and that the people with higher risk are covered first. Afterward, they'll look toward increasing outreach.

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STANISLAUS COUNTY, Calif. — For Stanislaus County, vaccine education for the Latino populations starts now.

With 64% of all the COVID-19 cases in the county being Latino, the way forward is inherently linked to getting the population vaccinated.

Kamlesh Kaur, a spokesperson for Stanislaus County Health Services Agency, said the Latino community was disproportionately impacted due in part to the sectors where many of them worked and due to many living in multi-generational households that spread the virus. 

Kaur said one of the key elements behind that 64% figure was the increased rates during the summer for Latinos and a lack of education and messaging.

“It (education) wasn’t as widespread at the time because it was also at the beginning of the pandemic, sort of,” Kaur said. “Since then, we have made a conscious effort in reaching out to the Latino community.”

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — 3,900 vaccines heading to Stanislaus County possibly by Thursday

Stanislaus County is expecting the arrival of 3,900 coronavirus vaccines, possibly by Thursday, health officials confirmed.

Bobby Moser, spokesperson for Stanislaus County Health Services, said major hospitals like Kaiser Permanente, Doctors Medical Center, and Sutter Health would be getting their own shipments while the county handled distribution for the smaller clinics. 

The vaccine comes at time when hospitals are being overwhelmed with surging COVID-19 cases. Moser said that the vaccines won't do much to mitigate the holiday surge of cases in the near future. However, he did say it was a glimmer of hope for the county at this time.

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Stanislaus County will be getting the initial allotment of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines within days and will start administering it to frontline healthcare workers soon.

The county's first shipment will be 3,900 doses of the vaccination and is going to be given to frontline healthcare workers in the county, said Stanislaus County Health Services Agency spokesperson Kamlesh Kaur. The vaccine requires two shots for the highest level of protection, so the first shipment will not be enough to vaccinate all frontline healthcare workers, Kaur said.

The state received the first 33,000 doses from Pfizer on Monday. About 300,000 more doses are scheduled to be distributed this week and nearly 400,000 additional doses are expected next week, according to the Associated Press. Subsequent doses will also be set aside for healthcare workers, as well as residents and workers at long-term care and skilled-nursing facilities, who can expect to receive doses of the vaccine through local pharmacies.

Essential workers as well as those with medical conditions that leave them vulnerable to severe cases of the virus, will be among the next groups prioritized for vaccination, said Dr. Erica Pan, the acting state public health officer. The general public can expect to be vaccinated in the spring and summer.

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