RivCo Officials: More supply than demand for COVID vaccines
On Tuesday's board of supervisors meeting, Dr. Geoffrey Leung with Riverside University Health System said we currently have more vaccine supply than demand.
“We seem to be shifting a little bit in that previously we had an undersupply of vaccine compared to the demand,” Dr. Leung said. “Presently we actually have more appointment slots for both community vaccine providers and for the mass vaccination sites than we have demand," he added.
Also, in the supervisor meeting, Kim Saruwatari, the director of public health for Riverside County reported 19.3 percent of the Riverside County population is partially vaccinated and 10.7 percent are fully vaccinated. In the category of 65 and older, 60.7 percent of that category is partially vaccinated and 38.4 percent are fully vaccinated.
Dr. Leung asked people to visit the county website to see if they qualify for a vaccine. Visit: https://www.rivcoph.org/COVID-19-Vaccine
"We believe that at least half of all individuals in Riverside County currently qualify to receive the COVID vaccination," Dr. Leung said.
As of Tuesday, March 23, Riverside County has administered 820,986 vaccines. There are a total of 12 mass vaccination sites open at least five days a week in Riverside County and there are six mobile teams to reach hard-to-reach areas.
Even as the vaccine supply improves, the demand for it seems to dwindle. Michael Osur, the assistant director of public health for Riverside County said that’s actually not what’s happening.
“So rather than say there’s more supply than demand, I would say we’re getting more supply and that there’s more opportunities for appointments. It hasn’t equalized yet because people thought there were no appointments available yet," Osur said.
Osur said this week the County made available over 25,000 appointments.
“That’s quite a lot more than we’ve had before because of the extra vaccine that’s coming in from the state and how the state is allocating vaccine to Riverside," Osur said.
We asked Osur if the County would consider opening up the vaccines to more people since we have more supply and he said the County will not do that until the State gives them the okay. President Biden has said the vaccine should be available to the general public by May. Osur said he hopes the State will allow that to happen sooner.
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