Newsom: ‘Hope Has Arrived’

CA’s First Doses Of Vaccine Land In State Prompting the Governor to Tweet, ‘Hope Has Arrived’

LOS ANGELES — One day after the state set new records for COVID-19 hospitalizations. Californians were scheduled to receive the first coronavirus vaccinations Monday morning. Gov. Gavin Newsom took to Twitter to declare, “Hope has arrived.”

Hundreds of thousands of Pfizer’s two-dose coronavirus vaccines arrived in California Sunday night. Some medical workers were scheduled to be vaccinated within hours.

The state is expected to receive more than 300,000 vaccines this week, which falls far short of the total needed to inoculate California’s 2.4 million healthcare workers. By month’s end, state officials expect to receive more than 2 million vaccines — enough to inoculate 1 million healthcare workers. The shortage means that doses will be doled out over the course of months with the average resident unlikely to have access until late spring or early summer.

Gov. Gavin Newsom was schedule visit a hospital in Los Angeles County at 12:15 p.m. Monday to witness the first administrations of the Pfizer vaccine to health care workers.

The vaccine arrives as new cases are soaring, COVID-19 hospitalizations have overwhelmed hospitals in the San Joaquin Valley and across Southern California, and some counties are under stay-at-home orders. California set a grim new record for COVID-19 deaths Friday when 218 deaths were reported across the state. Still, Monday marks the beginning of the end of the pandemic that has claimed nearly 21,000 lives in California, which Newsom’s Tweet: “Hope has arrived.”

State and county officials have released limited information about where the vaccines are being stored “In the interest of the safety of the workers at these sites.” However, several hospitals announced plans to begin inoculating acute-care workers Monday including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and UCLA Health in Los Angeles, Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, UC San Francisco Medical Center, Mercy Medical Center in Redding and UC Davis Health in Sacramento, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Lee Rice, communications manager for Eisenhower Health issued a statement that stated, in part,

Because vaccination of the general public is still in the planning stages, CDPH is your best source of information.

In December, Eisenhower Health expects to receive a limited number of vaccines.

Per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regulations, this first round of vaccines (Phase 1A) must be given to health care workers and support staff working directly with COVID-19 patients.

“There are no firm details on when those doses will be received. Out of respect for our staff, we will not provide interviews about health care worker vaccinations until we have communicated that information directly with them,” Rice said.