Nearly two million vaccines are locked up in different storage in California remain unused while the COVID-19 death rate in the state continues to spike.

Covid-19 Refrigerator Production
Covid-19 Refrigerator Production Ivan Romano/Getty Images

Skyrocketing COVID-19 cases in California

California remains the state in the country with the highest number of COVID-19 infections and the second state with the highest death toll. According to Worldometers, California has recorded more than 2.9 million COVID-19 infections with over 33,000 deaths.

While the number of infections and the death toll continues to increase in the state, nearly two million vaccines are locked up in different cold storage across the state remain unused.

According to a report in ABC News, more Californians are now dying due to COVID-19. The state has recorded 525 deaths every day. Despite this, vaccine distribution in the different counties in California which are heavily impacted remains very low.

In another report in San Francisco Chronicle, Santa Clara County asked for 100,000 doses to ramp up vaccine distribution but the state offered only a fraction of that amount: 6,000 doses.

The report also noted that California has among the lower rates of vaccine administration in the country, with only 38% of the 3.1 million doses delivered to the state actually being given so far. This means that close to 2 million doses are apparently stored in freezers and awaiting recipients.

Method of vaccine distribution in California

The slow distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the different counties in California could be associated with the state's method.

With the increasing number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in California, the state is expected to have a faster distribution of vaccines.

According to a Daily Wire, here is how the state distributes the vaccines:

  • The state has 58 local health departments and three city health departments. Sometimes the local health department schedules vaccine appointments but private providers also offer vaccines.
  • According to the California Department of Public Health, they do not ever possess the vaccines. Instead, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine doses are sent to the county health departments and large health care providers.

Additionally, the counties and big health systems vaccine order from the state, but these requests will be transferred to the federal government.

It is also the federal government that decides how many doses will be distributed in the states. After it, they will direct the manufacturers to deliver the doses to the state.

However, the state has provided little transparency about the number of doses delivered to and administered by each provider.

That makes it difficult to pinpoint where exactly the unused doses are. This also means that some counties are unaware of how many vaccines the private providers have obtained.

There should be an efficient way to distribute the vaccines in the different counties in California most especially in Los Angeles which has already reached more than one million infections.

Public health officials are also worried because their hospitals are almost at full capacity and the only way to stop this situation is to increase vaccination.