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Severe Winter Weather Impacts Bay Area's COVID-19 Vaccine Supply

The severe winter weather in the U.S. is not hitting the Bay Area directly, but it’s definitely having a significant impact on its COVID-19 vaccine supplies.

Hundreds of thousands of doses that were supposed to arrive in California Friday didn’t because of the deep freeze across much of the country.

In total, six million doses that were set to be delivered nationwide are now delayed. 

A mass vaccination site on Berger Drive in San Jose is still administering about 1,400 COVID vaccine shots a day and many people, including Marciel Cardenas, had heard about the vaccine shipment delay and were relieved to get their shot Friday.

“I’m lucky,” said Cardenas. “I’m a person who is very, very lucky.”

How long the luck holds out depends on that severe weather. Governor Gavin Nesom said about 702,000 doses — mainly Moderna — were delayed.

“We don’t have the exact dates. A lot that were going to arrive today didn’t so there is going to be some adjustment,” he said. “There is going to be some impact … a lot of calls, a lot of stress.”

But the president’s COVID-19 task force gave an encouraging update. 

“One point four million doses are already in transit today. And we anticipate that all the backlog doses will be delivered within the next week with most being delivered within the next several days,” said Andry Slavitt.

“I just want to reassure everyone that here anybody that has had an appointment to date has been vaccinated,” said mass vaccination site lead Rupalee Patel. “So it’s important to come out and get vaccinated if you do have an appointment.”

Santa Clara County Public Health acknowledges it has not received all it’s expected shipments but has enough to fulfill appointments until early next week. After that, a lot depends on the weather.

“I think it’s really important to get these vaccines in before things start to get delayed with this horrible weather that everybody else is having to experience,” said vaccine recipient Eileen.

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Source: NBC Bay Area

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