COVID-19 Vaccinations for Health Care Workers
January 11, 2021

Both Alameda and Contra Costa Counties are now providing vaccinations to all health care workers covered by Phase 1a – including health care workers with patient-facing responsibilities in acute care, primary care, and specialty care settings.

Many physicians are already being vaccinated at their affiliated hospitals, but we understand that unaffiliated physicians and medical office staff in outpatient practices may have been unable to obtain vaccinations. Each County now has a process for vaccinating unaffiliated practices:

Alameda County: This morning, Alameda County announced that appointments would be available for COVID vaccinations through County Points of Dispensing (PODs). Appointments are available this Tuesday-Friday at the Castro Valley Library (January 12-13) and St. Rose Hospital in Hayward (January 14-15). Please see the following announcement from Alameda County, which includes links to register for appointments this week. If you have questions or issues with the scheduling system, you can email covax@acgov.org; please put “scheduling issue for week of [date]” in the subject line. More locations will be available in the near future.

City of Berkeley: The City of Berkeley, which is its own Health Jurisdiction, is now vaccinating healthcare workers in phase 1a, tiers 1-3, who work in Berkeley. Healthcare workers who meet this requirement can schedule their vaccine appointment here.

Contra Costa County: In Contra Costa County, primary care and specialty practices can arrange to be vaccinated at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center and John Muir; you do not have to have any affiliation with CCRMC or John Muir to utilize these services. This is open to physicians and office staff in both primary care and specialty clinics. More information – including links and instructions for arranging a vaccination appointment at CCRMC or John Muir – can be found here: https://www.coronavirus.cchealth.org/providers-and-caregivers

More Info on CDC Prioritization Guidance
The county health departments are implementing vaccination plans in accordance with the CDC and CDPH prioritization guidance. The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) updated its Interim Recommendation for Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine, published on December 22, 2020. The prioritizations in California are as follows:
  • Phase 1A (outlined in detail above): health care personnel, long-term care facility residents
  • Phase 1B: persons aged ≥65 years and non–health care frontline essential workers
  • Phase 1C: persons aged 50 to 64 years, persons aged 16–49 years with high-risk medical conditions, and essential workers not included in Phase 1b
  • Phase 2: All other persons aged ≥16 years

Vaccination planning for subsequent phases is occurring while vaccines are being deployed. Accordingly, there is very little information presently about how groups 1b and beyond will be implemented. The current focus is deploying to group 1a. We expect that the state and federal governments will provide additional guidance to the counties on implementation of subsequent groups. The counties estimate that they will conclude vaccinating group 1a in late January/early February. We expect further clarity on the process for vaccinating subsequent groups in the coming weeks and we will continue to provide updates as more information is shared.

For more information about prioritization guidance, please visit: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations-process.html

The following slides from the December 20th ACIP meeting provides information about the rationale and process by which the CDC arrived at this prioritization framework: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-12/slides-12-20/02-COVID-Dooling.pdf

Additional Information

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact ACCMA at 510-654-5383 or accma@accma.org