Cortese Issues Statement on Need for Changes in California’s Vaccine Distribution to Integrate Hardest-Hit Communities in the Bay Area

Senator Dave Cortese (D-San Jose) issued the following statement regarding a Bay Area-wide effort led by State Legislators, community leaders, and community-based organizations, urging the state to reformulate the latest state vaccine distribution plan unveiled late in the week of March 1st. Even though the Bay Area accounts for 20% of the population of California and includes many hard-hit communities with COVID-19 infection rates that are twice that of the state's overall rate, only 2% of Bay Area residents fall under zip codes being prioritized for nearly half of the available doses of the COVID-19 vaccine through the state's new vaccine distribution formula.

 

“Ongoing discussions with the Governor’s Office continue today and have been occurring over the prior weekend and last week. The Governor’s Office has expressed a committed to providing a more formal response to the concerns expressed by Bay Area communities on the vaccine equity rollout issues within the next 24 hours. We are working collaboratively with them and are optimistic that hard-hit areas in the Bay Area that were overlooked will now be included in the state’s prioritization. 

“Not every community has felt the effects of this pandemic equally. We need targeted efforts to address the longstanding racial and economic disparities that have been only intensified by COVID-19.

“We share a commitment to eliminating all socioeconomic barriers to health equity and my asks, specifically, moving forward include the following:

  1.      Instead of a reduction in vaccines, we need an immediate increase sufficient to cover our hardest-hit Bay Area communities.
  2.      We need a recalibration and redefinition of hard-hit COVID-19 impacted communities based on census tract data from counties so that no hard-hit census tracts are left behind.
  3.      The State must have vaccine equity sites in partnership with local CBO’s that can assist with language accessible and culturally competent outreach utilizing their established networks
  4.      We need the ability, at the local level, to redistribute vaccines to meet the need.”

 

For more information, contact Tara Sreekrishnan, Office of Senator Dave Cortese, at 408 480 7833 or tara.sreekrishnan@sen.ca.gov.