Smaller COVID-19 vaccine clinics help address access, disparity issues in Orange County
To get COVID-19 vaccines into the arms of as many residents as possible, especially seniors and vulnerable populations that may lack access to large-scale vaccination sites, agencies and municipalities in Orange County are hosting several smaller, local vaccine clinics.
In a special event Friday at Huntington Beach Hospital, healthcare workers administered 600 second-round shots of the vaccine to underserved community members who’d received first doses last month during an earlier mobile clinic hosted by the city of Huntington Beach.
While county health officials have opened super vaccination points of dispensing at Disneyland in Anaheim, Aliso Viejo’s Soka University and Santa Ana College, the number of places where residents can receive the COVID-19 vaccine is growing as more supplies come online.
The Orange County Health Care Agency reported Thursday a cumulative 734,297 doses have so far been administered throughout the county since Dec. 15 — up from 591,713 the week before. Individuals over 65 account for nearly 60% of all vaccinations distributed, the report indicates.
The agency remains the No. 1 supplier of the vaccine, having doled out 265,097 doses so far, with retail drugstore chain CVS providing an additional 67,535 shots and Kaiser of Southern California dispensing 49,639 doses.
Ethnic disparities in who’s getting vaccinated continue, however, with white individuals so far amassing 47% of the doses given so far, compared to Asian/Pacific Islanders at 25% and Latino residents, who account for just 13% of those who have received at least one dose of the vaccine, the agency reported.
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