Vaccine Setbacks Plague Orange County Distribution Center

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — On Tuesday, Orange County Health Care reported an additional 110 deaths due to coronavirus. Current hospitalizations have dropped to 2,007, with 523 in intensive care. Nearly 4,000 more residents have tested positive for coronavirus, they reported.

While residents wrestle with the Othena app to make vaccination appointments, the main point of distribution vaccination site was closed Tuesday. High winds forced the temporary closure of the outdoor point of distribution COVID-19 vaccination site at Disneyland, Tuesday. This is one of two temporary blows to efforts to accelerate the distribution of vaccines, Orange County Health Care officials reported Tuesday. Residents with appointments on Tuesday should check their emails or the Othena App for further information.

No rescheduling should be necessary as all patients should have been notified of rescheduled times, according to the agency.

"We absolutely did not want to close today because we want to keep our vaccine program going, but when you get word from fire personnel and local law enforcement saying you could have gusts up to 40 mph then you have to balance between the needs of vaccinating and the safety of residents and employees," Orange County CEO Frank Kim said.

Concern about gusts uprooting the tents being used at the site, Kim said. More than that, County officials also are concerned about a slowdown in the supply of vaccines, Kim said. "I was told we were getting around 43,000 doses today and there might be another 16,000 later this week," Kim said. "But, for us, our concern is wanting to open up a second POD site," and that is unlikely without enough vaccines to justify it, Kim said. "It's a huge logistical lift to create another POD," Kim said. "We're ready to go on another POD site, but we just want to know their reliability in the supply to keep both sites operating."

In other news, Orange County also paused delivering vaccine doses from a specific lot of Moderna vaccines due to issues with the lot causing allergic reactions in San Diego patients. The lot is under investigation by the FDA and the CDC, according to Moderna.

Of the 110 deaths reported Tuesday were 35 skilled nursing facility residents, though no skilled nursing facility staff were reported to have succumbed to the disease. An additional 16 assisted living facility residents were also reported to have died of coronavirus, and 59 residents perished of COVID-19. Since the start of the pandemic, the virus has killed 765 skilled nursing facility residents and 275 assisted living facility residents.

The Orange County Sheriff's Coroner's Department ordered refrigerated trailers to store an average of about 100 bodies at area funeral homes that can catch up with the embalming and burial process, Orange County CEO Frank Kim said.

Read No Room At Morgues; Shipping Containers Ordered For OC Victims

The county's state-adjusted ICU bed availability remains at zero, and the unadjusted figure decreased from 7.8% Saturday to 5.5% as of Tuesday's report. The state created the adjusted metric to reflect the difference in beds available for COVID-19 patients and non-coronavirus patients. The county has 34 percent of its ventilators available, dropping from 36 percent Sunday.

The Southern California region, consisting of 11 counties across the state, remains at zero ICU availability.

The 27,283 test results reported Sunday raises the cumulative total to 2,457,987. There have been 143,618 estimated recoveries from the virus, according to OC Health Care.

Orange County's adjusted daily case rate per 100,000 -- released on Tuesdays --has fallen to 67.1.

The county's Health Equity Quartile Positivity Rate, which measures the cases in highly affected, needier parts of the county, fell to 21.2 percent.

The county's seven-day positivity rate has dropped from 19.5% last week to 16.7 percent.

Testing demand is also slowing, while the demand for vaccinations is soaring, according to OC Health Care.

Officials do not expect a significant drop in hospitalization rates until at least the end of January, Kim said.

The county's Othena.com app and website, where residents can get vaccination information and make appointments to get inoculated at the Disneyland mega-site that opened Wednesday, have been heavily used since going online Tuesday. The website hits and downloads of the app topped 100 million combined this week, Kim said.

On Thursday, the county opened up 3,600 appointment slots for Sunday, and they were all taken in 13 minutes, he said.

On Friday, some of the residents being inoculated at Disneyland were given a ticket so staff could track how long it took them to get through the process. What was taking an hour or two on Wednesday was down to 42 minutes on Friday, Kim said.

"I was really happy we got it under an hour," he said. "That means we can start increasing capacity."

The county will hire about 120 temporary workers to help with staffing, Kim said. Another team is working on recruiting and screening volunteers to assist at the vaccination location.

Officials are also working out the bugs on the app, adding that a new version awaiting Apple's approval is expected to address the most common concerns and issues.

"We think the majority of the issues are behind us now," Kim said.

Dr. Clayton Chau, the county's chief health officer and OCHCA director, said seniors 65 and older were moved to the front of the line for vaccines this week, immediately following the state's modified guidelines. He noted that a survey showed 54% of the COVID-19 patients hospitalized in 13 OC hospitals are 61 and older, and 71% in ICUs are 61 and older. Nearly 72% of those on a ventilator are 61 and older.

"Seventy-five percent of those who have died in Orange County are also seniors, aged 65 or over," Chau said Tuesday.

Monday, the OCHCA reported a concern with one lot of the Moderna vaccine -- suspending the use of Moderna's lot 041L20A due to possible allergic reactions that are under investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S Food and Drug Administration, and the manufacturer.

The agency said that, to date, it had received zero notifications of allergic reactions requiring medical attention due to any Moderna vaccines.

"According to the state vaccine registry, 5,217 individuals in Orange County received the Moderna vaccine lot 041L20A," the county said. "To determine if you received the subject vaccine lot, please refer to your vaccination card. If you received a vaccine from this lot number and experience any adverse reactions or didn't feel well, please immediately contact your primary care provider/doctor."

For the past two weeks, the county has set up pop-up clinics to bring vaccines to "high-density pockets of seniors" in the community, Kim said.

Orange County expects to spend between $60 million to $70 million on the Super POD vaccine sites, he said. Ultimately, the county wants to have up to five of the mega-sites and to place them regionally throughout the county, with the next one either on the north end or the south end.

But first, the county wants to stabilize the Disneyland site and have enough trained volunteers committed to staffing it before opening a second one, which would be backfilled by staff in case volunteers do not show up for work.

Also, the county needs enough supply of vaccines to justify opening another site, officials say.
The county is expecting 35,000 more doses this week, Chau said and is handling distribution of about 20% of the doses sent from the state, with health care providers doling out the rest.

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