Bay Area health officials prepare for the first batches of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine

Bay Area health officials prepare for the first batches of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine

Cristina Rendon reports on what's being done to prepare locally, and breaks down how many doses each county will receive.

SAN FRANCISCO - The first batches of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine are set to arrive next week in California with allocations divided up between counties.

Health officials said the vaccines will come on large trays, similar to a pizza box. Each box contains 975 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and some counties are receiving more boxes than others.

Here’s a breakdown of the first Pfizer vaccine allocations for the Bay Area:

San Francisco will receive roughly 12,000 doses.
Alameda County will receive 13,650 doses, with one box going to the City of Berkeley.
Contra Costa County will receive roughly 10,000 doses.
San Mateo County will receive 5,850 doses.
Sonoma County will receive 4,875 doses.
Solano County will receive 3,900 doses.
Marin County will receive 1,950 doses.
Napa County will receive 1,950 doses.
Santa Clara County will receive 17, 550 doses.

Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody said this allocation doesn’t even come close to covering all of the frontline workers in the First Tier of the state’s prioritization list.

“We will be able to vaccinate a tiny portion of one priority group to start, which means all the current prevention measures that we’re doing need to stay firmly in place,” Cody said in a call with county officials on Wednesday.

Keep in mind the vaccines are only going to people in acute care like those who work in hospitals and seniors in skilled nursing facilities. There is no chance of the general public getting a vaccine at this time. The timeline for widespread vaccine distribution is expected next spring or summer. Until then, health officials are urging people to continuing taking safety measures to prevent the spread of covid-19.

“We know how to slow the spread of the virus,” Dr. Grant Colfax, SF Director of Public Health, said. “We’ve done it twice before. Let’s do it a third time.”

Even more vaccines are on the way to the Bay Area in the future. Vaccines from Moderna are expected to arrive by the end of the month.

The Pfizer vaccine is set to be given in two doses, 21 days apart. The Moderna vaccine is also given in two doses, 28 days apart.

The California Department of Public Health determined initial allocations for California counties in accordance to a prioritization framework for the first 327,000 doses that will be received. It is unclear how the state determined the amount of doses to allocate to each county in each region.