Kaiser, Santa Clara County In Dispute Over Second COVID-19 Vaccine Dose Cancellations
SANTA CLARA (CBS SF) -- Early in the process of vaccine distribution, Kaiser was struggling with a vaccine shortage. Santa Clara County, by comparison, had more supply. Those circumstances are reversed for the moment, and that is causing some problems and some disagreements between the two.
"Basically what happened is I started getting emails from my members on Thursday that Levi's Stadium was sending them cancellation notices," Cupertino Education Association President Kai Brown told KPIX 5.
Brown is a science teacher, and his union president. Plans to get all of his members fully vaccinated with their second shots hit an unexpected snag late this week.
"What they were saying is that with the new state guidance instead of the county doing the second vaccination it was going to be done through their healthcare provider," he said. "All of these were Kaiser members."
Saturday afternoon, Kaiser issued a pointed statement on the situation, saying that "Santa Clara County has created this issue for itself and thousands of its vaccine patients by not accounting for second doses."
Hours later the county accused Kaiser of mismanaging its supply, alleging that "by reserving 2nd doses they have built a hoard of vaccine that could be used to fulfill all transferred appointments."
The county's assertion is that the state told them not to reserve those second doses because more were coming, only to have deliveries reduced.
"Everybody was kept with a baseline," Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday. "We didn't take the baseline. It's the increment that I know has created a little bit of stress. But we are in a scarcity frame."
The governor mentioned the situation, just before promising the bottleneck would end in late April.
"Because supply will exponentially increase," Newsom said. "So in a few weeks, these issues will substantively be addressed."
Meantime, Kaiser has been picking up those second-dose appointments that were cancelled at county sites like Levi's.
"About halfway through Friday, Kaiser began to actually call people back and start rescheduling them," Brown said. "Many of them for pretty much the same time that they originally had their second vaccinations."
Kaiser, who said it wants to return to a collaborative approach with the county, also said it will be filing a complaint based upon the county's actions with the Department of Health and Human Services.
