SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – San Diego County will open vaccinations to new groups starting Saturday.
According to the county, education and child care workers, emergency service workers and those working in agriculture and food will be able to receive the vaccine starting this weekend.
The announcement moves the county to phase 1B of the vaccine.
“We will open vaccines to about half a million San Diego residents,” Supervisor Nathan Fletcher said Wednesday. “There won’t be half a million appointments available on Saturday or Sunday or Monday or for many weeks,” Fletcher warned.
The county decided to open vaccination appointments after the lack of use of the first doses by seniors, Fletcher said.
Fletcher said the vaccines will be split between agencies to help manage traits among recently announced groups:
- The San Diego County Board of Education will manage vaccinations for K-12 educators. The rest of the eligible people in this group will go to the county immunization website to make an appointment.
- Vaccines for emergency workers will also be managed through the county website. Scripps Health will provide help to vaccinate law enforcement.
- Vaccines for those in the food and agriculture category will be managed through the county website. CAL FIRE will help vaccinate agricultural workers on site.
Fletcher added that so far more than 783,000 vaccines have been administered in San Diego County. Of this, almost 68% of the elderly have been vaccinated. About 7.3% of San Diegans have been completely vaccinated.
“We’re getting arm vaccines at a very impressive pace,” Fletcher said.
San Diego County began receiving a portion of the nearly 80,000 doses of storm-delayed vaccine on Tuesday night, which allowed the county to reschedule all missed second doses and resume first-dose appointments.