SAN JOSE — Santa Clara County will close its COVID-19 vaccination and mass sites through the end of the month because they are no longer critical to the county’s pandemic response, county officials said Wednesday.
While county fitness officials have emphasized that the pandemic is not over and that COVID has not been eradicated, a higher local vaccination rate and low viral spread rate have made it less difficult for the county to finish its large-scale testing and vaccination sites.
Officials also pointed to the widespread availability of home COVID testing and primary providers like Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health providing testing and vaccinations as reasons why the county might withdraw similar efforts.
“We are now at a point where at least 90 percent of the county’s population has gained at least one vaccine,” County Executive Director Dr. Jeff Smith said Wednesday. “So, because of that, the urgency for the county to have mass vaccination sites and sites are gone. “
Testing at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds is expected to end Feb. 24, while vaccinations will end Feb. 25, according to the county.
Testing and vaccinations at the St. Martin County Animal Shelter are scheduled to end Feb. 25, while vaccinations at the San Antonio Mall in Mountain View will end Feb. 28. The tests have already finished in Mountain View.
Many smaller sites in the county are also expected to close in the coming weeks. According to county officials, Santa Clara County Health System has provided about 1. 6 million PCR tests since May 2020.
The county’s fitness formula has also administered about 1. 9 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine since the vaccine became available in December 2020.
At one point, the county operated the state’s largest COVID testing and vaccination at Levi’s Stadium, which treated only about 14,000 patients per day at its peak.
The county and the San Francisco 49ers, the team that plays its home games at the stadium, shut down testing and vaccination in the summer of 2021.
“We’re still in the midst of a pandemic, but we’re moving from a full reaction where we have a sense of urgency every day to a reaction where we’re adjusting to life with COVID,” the county officer and fitness director said. of public aptitude, Dr. Sara Cody.
Cody noted that the county announced its first case of COVID on Tuesday 3 years ago. On Friday, it will be 3 years since the county declared a virus emergency.
The end of the month will also mark the end of the state’s COVID state of emergency.
“We are grateful for the immunity that has been created through the vaccine network and are in a larger, safer position that allows us to move from a full emergency reaction to a more continuous reaction built into our operations. Cody said.
The county still plans to provide COVID vaccinations, tests and other fitness care to the more than 225,000 citizens whose primary provider of fitness care is the county’s fitness system.
Cody encouraged citizens to get vaccinated if they haven’t already done so and get a booster dose once they are eligible for particularly the chances of worse outcomes from the virus.
He also noted that the amount of COVID detected in the county’s 4 major sewers, which cover 95% of the county’s population, is lower than in the past two months.
However, viral detection is still high enough to encourage citizens to wear masks indoors to prevent the spread of the virus.
“The pandemic is not over. We can’t claim a day when it’s over and, as you can see, it has a very, very long tail,” Cody said. “We don’t know when it’s going to end. What is different is how we react to it. “