[Ucrea] Kaiser Permanente Plan Members – COVID-19 Update: Vaccine Supply and Eligibility

[Cristina L Otegui]

[cid:image001.png at 01D6FA42.9CE4E380]
February 3, 2021

To:         UCR Emeriti & Retirees
From:     UCR Benefits Office on behalf of Kaiser Permanente
Re:         Kaiser Permanente Plan Members – COVID-19 Update: Vaccine Supply and Eligibility

The following COVID communication by Kaiser Permanente is provided to their medical plan members. You are welcome to share this message with retirees and emeriti who may inquire about the availability of the Coronavirus vaccine.

*******************************************************************************************************
With the recent announcement that California vaccine guidelines were expanded to include everyone age 65 and older, we have received many inquiries regarding eligibility and access to the COVID-19 vaccine. The following information is an update with the latest information on vaccine supply and distribution.

Vaccine Supply
Expanding California vaccine guidelines to include everyone age 65 and older increases eligibility by nearly 6 million people in the state. Unfortunately, the vaccine supply to distributors has not yet been increased to vaccinate that many people. Right now, vaccines are in extremely short supply for all vaccine distributors across the country, including Kaiser Permanente.

As a vaccine distributor, Kaiser Permanente is organized and prepared to distribute the vaccine as supplies are received. As of January 16, 2021, we have administered more than 170,000 vaccines in California. Each week, we receive a small fraction of the vaccines required to meet our members’ needs. Kaiser Permanente cares for more than 1.5 million members age 65 and older, and in early January we received a vaccine supply of just 20,000 first doses. Our ability to expand and speed vaccine distribution depends on the vaccine supply made available to our state. At the current rate, we are looking at a vaccine distribution that is much slower that we find acceptable. We are doing all we can to get additional vaccine supply as soon as possible.

Vaccine distribution
Like many, consistent with state recommendations and due to the vaccine supply shortage, we are currently continuing to vaccinate the following Phase 1a priority groups:

·       Health care workers

·       Long-term care patients

As supply becomes available, we will begin offering vaccine appointments to individuals age 75 and older in alignment with California Department of Public Health guidelines which can be viewed at the covid19.ca.gov webpage at:
https://covid19.ca.gov/vaccines/#Vaccine-allocation-and-administration.

We will reach out to our members who are not in Phase 1a as vaccines and appointments become available for them. They do not need to email, call us, or go online for appointments until we have contacted them. Please note that primary care physicians cannot book appointments for vaccines.

What to do now

·       Encourage retirees and emeriti who are Kaiser Permanente members to register for an account on Kaiser Permanente webpage to receive the timeliest updates at: https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/southern-california/front-door.

·       Stay up-to-date for the latest information on when other groups may be able to get the vaccine; visit the Kaiser Permanente webpage at:

https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/southern-california/health-wellness/coronavirus-information/covid-vaccine?kp_shortcut_referrer=kp.org/covidvaccine.

The pace of vaccination is dependent on supply
We are committed to getting COVID-19 vaccines to our members and communities as soon and as equitably as possible. We have added capacity so that as more supplies become available, we will be able to vaccinate many more members at additional locations.
We anticipate vaccine supply to ramp up over the coming weeks but vaccine supply and eligibility may vary across counties and cities. We will keep you updated on vaccine eligibility and availability.




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ucr.edu/pipermail/ucrea/attachments/20210203/08bafb44/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 16214 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <https://lists.ucr.edu/pipermail/ucrea/attachments/20210203/08bafb44/attachment-0001.png>