California Still Anxiously Awaiting More COVID-19 Vaccine

Governor Newsom

Sacramento, CA — Governor Gavin Newsom says 7.5 million Californians have now received at least the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, but the state is capable of delivering a much larger supply.

Referencing the 7.5-million figure at a press conference this morning, Newsom said, “That’s now more than the country of Israel. There are only a few countries in the world that have vaccinated more people than the state of California. We’re averaging just shy of 200,000 doses administered each and every day and about 1.4 million were administered over the last week.”

But on the other hand, he says, “It is also important to highlight this stubborn fact…There is not enough doses and there is not enough vaccines to accommodate the need and demand.”

Adding, “Sites across California are toggling back based on limited supply. That’s a manufacturing issue. The manufactured supply in the United States of America is limited.”

He says the supply is seeing “modest improvements” each week, but the state has the capacity to do “exponentially more.”

Some larger regional sites are only running at 1/3 of capacity due to limited vaccine supply.

Last week around 1.3-million new doses arrived in the state, this week 1.4-million should arrive, and next week 1.5 million. Supply is anticipated to exponentially ramp up by spring and early summer with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and Astrazeneca becoming available.

Tuolumne County has administered 12,077 doses and Calaveras County has done 9,151.