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The county’s vaccination registry recorded 7,320 doses of coronavirus vaccine given to children in San Diego County in the six days following state approval, according to the latest weekly COVID-19 report released on Wednesday.
That number is about 2.4 percent of the 310,643 5-11 year olds who queued to get their syringes on November 3rd. On Wednesday, the state’s vaccination tracker said 3.1 percent of the 3.5 million children in that age group had been vaccinated.
Nationwide, about 2 percent of the estimated 28 million children under the age of 12 are vaccinated, according to vaccination statistics updated Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Across San Diego County, 3.1 million people are now eligible for a vaccination, with 73.8 percent of that number already fully vaccinated and an additional 279,293 booster vaccinations. Overall, including children under 5 who are not yet approved for the vaccine, the area’s full rate of vaccination for all 3.34 million residents is nearly 70 percent, with 75 percent receiving at least one dose.
Anyone who witnessed the swarm of families at San Diego’s first 5-11 vaccination clinic at Rady Children’s Hospital last Wednesday may be a little surprised to find that fewer than 10 percent of eligible local children are getting their first doses have received.
The district experts responsible for the local vaccination effort were unavailable Wednesday to discuss the first week of vaccination in the newly admitted younger population, despite a district spokesperson saying in an email that they “intervened to prevent facilities requiring an additional vaccine make available, “have managed more than expected.”
It is also clear that vaccination efforts are still gaining momentum in younger children.
Dr. Jaime Friedman, a local pediatrician with Children’s Primary Care Medical Group, said many offices, including hers, have not yet started offering weekend vaccination clinics, although that should change soon. For the first week, she added, her office only gave doses to healthy children who were already scheduled for routine checkups. Some, she said, simply prefer to incorporate vaccination into pre-existing routines rather than avoiding them.
“Many parents request that we do this when they come for their future appointments,” Friedman said.
But with the holidays approaching and travel plans in sight, some are determined to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Most eagerly snapping available appointments at Rady and local pharmacies, larger clinics operating from trusted pediatricians are expected to show up very soon on the weekends.
“There are a lot of options for parents right now,” Friedman said. “I know it was stressful when many of the first appointments were booked up quickly, but everyone is still excited and I think we will see quite a lot of children vaccinated in the next few weeks.”
San Diego County’s latest COVID-19 report shows that daily positive tests recently happened in the mid-400s, as the area’s total COVID-19 count in local hospitals drops below 300, after hitting 314 a week ago would have.
It can take days or weeks for positive test results and other information to reach the county health department for reporting to the public, which means recent results are always somewhat incomplete. To give a better feeling for the overall course of the pandemic, the health department looks back two weeks and calculates a seven-day average case rate per 100,000 inhabitants in each published weekly report.
This week’s fall rate reached 14.6 per 100,000 for the seven days October 17-23, up from 12.9 per 100,000 the previous week. As the CDC defines it, the increase shifts the community of San Diego County’s broadcast levels from “significant” to “high”. It’s the first time the number has risen in over five weeks, but it’s still below the rates seen from September 12 through October 9.
Those who were not fully vaccinated continue to make up the bulk of local hospital admissions and deaths. Although 30 percent of the local population are not yet fully vaccinated, they account for 71 percent of the 12,959 new cases recorded since October 11, according to the latest count from the county. Almost 91 percent of the 259 local hospitalizations during that 30-day period were unvaccinated, as were 23 of the 31 who died with COVID-19.
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