California could vaccinate 1 million people against COVID-19 this month

FRESNO, Calif. -- "Hope is on the horizon" when it comes it California building its COVID-19 vaccine inventory, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a news conference on Monday morning.

The governor announced the state expects to receive a little more than two million doses of the vaccine this month between distributions from the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, and biotechnology maker, Moderna.
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That amount is in addition to the 327,000 initial doses California expects to receive as early as December 15 from Pfizer.

While the United States is still currently awaiting FDA approval for the Pfizer vaccine, which is expected as soon as December 10, Newsom said California had submitted its first order from the company to deliver the doses directly to distribution centers within the state.

The Moderna vaccine is also waiting for national approval, and the governor said the FDA should begin discussing the vaccine by December 17.



Last week, Newsom said the first vaccines would go to the most high-risk healthcare workers, and he broke them down into three tiers.
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Tier 1: Acute care facilities, psychiatric facility hospitals, correctional facility hospitals, skilled nursing and assisted living facilities, paramedics, EMTs, emergency medical responders and dialysis centers

Tier 2: Intermediate care facilities, home health care and community health care workers, public health field staff, primary care clinics, urgent care clinics and correctional facility clinics

Tier 3: Specialty clinics, lab workers, dental clinics, pharmacy staff (especially in higher risk areas)

The additional two million doses will also likely go toward these groups.

California has roughly 2.4 million healthcare workers, according to ABC News.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines need to be administered twice, meaning each worker would need two doses. So only about half of California's healthcare workers would be vaccinated from the December shipments.
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Newsom also announced that the state's vaccine advisory committee is moving forward with its discussions about who will be in the next group of people to receive the vaccination.



"You're going to start to see, I expect, and I really believe this, you're going to start to hear good news, and numbers that continue to significantly increase over the weeks in terms of the availability of vaccinations," he said.

The next public meeting for the committee is being held on Wednesday.