Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that the state is looking to enlist dentists, pharmacy techs, members of the National Guard and others to help speed up the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations, which has fallen far short of the goal.
Nearly 1.3 million doses of the vaccine have been received so far, with another 611,500 to be shipped to the state, Newsom said. Just 454,306 doses of vaccines had been administered in California, as of Sunday. Newsom previously said the state planned to administer 2 million doses by the end of 2020.
“Not good enough, we recognize that,” the governor said on Monday. He said he would submit a budget this week that calls for $300 million toward the vaccine effort and was talking to other governors about best practices.
The California Dental Association said it welcomed the call for dentists to help administer vaccines and noted that the Department of Consumer Affairs on Monday approved a waiver to allow them to do so.
“Dentists are ready, willing and able to help administer COVID-19 vaccinations to the public,” CDA President Judee Tippett-Whyte said in a release. “We can help with surge capacity at clinics and vaccinations sites – wherever we’re needed to quickly administer vaccinations and save lives.”
Meanwhile, a community advisory committee is set to discuss Wednesday the next phase of the vaccine’s rollout. The ADA called for dentists to be moved up in priority for who gets vaccinated first.
Newsom was giving an update on California’s response to the coronavirus pandemic as the death toll in the state has topped 26,500 and confirmed cases near 2.4 million.
The state’s swamped hospitals held more than 22,000 COVID-19 patients, including nearly 4,700 in intensive care units, the Department of Public Health said Monday.
Newsom cited a “modest growth rate” in hospitalizations over the past two weeks — 18% — ahead of what he said would be the coming “surge on top of a surge” in the coming days due to travel and gatherings for the December holidays and New Year’s.
He called slowing hospitalizations “good news,” but noted a seven-fold increase in hospitalizations over the past two months, six-fold for admissions at intensive care units.
“It shows what can happen at a very short period of time,” he said.
Still, he said that data showed that mobility on New Year’s Eve was down to levels associated with the original stay-at-home order in March.
–The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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