Last updated: 7:17 p.m. Jan. 24

In Santa Cruz County, the COVID-19 vaccine is available to health care workers, staff and residents of nursing homes and people 75 or older who are patients of Sutter Health/Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Kaiser Permanente or Dignity Health Medical Group-Dominican.

The vaccine is also available to Dignity Health Medical Group-Dominican patients who work in health care, education, child care, food services and agriculture as vaccine supply allows, according to a statement from Dr. Steve Magee, the medical group’s president. The medical group vaccinated 180 people in the first three days of its vaccination clinic Jan. 20 to 22. The week of Jan. 24 they plan to give 2,500 doses, Magee wrote.

The vaccine requires two doses, about three to four weeks apart, depending on the maker. Data shows that vaccination reduces the chance of symptomatic illness by about 95%.

Scroll for answers to these questions:

• When will I get access to the vaccine?
• How will I know when it’s my turn to get the vaccine? Where will I go to get it?
• I’m a health care worker. How do I get the vaccine?
• I’m a Sutter Health/Palo Alto Medical Foundation patient. How do I get the vaccine?
• I’m a Kaiser Permanente patient. How do I get the vaccine?
• I’m a Dignity Health Medical Group-Dominican patient. How do I get the vaccine?
• I’m a Santa Cruz Community Health Centers patient. How do I get the vaccine?
• I’m older than 75 and not part of Kaiser Permanente, Dignity Health Medical Group-Domincan or Sutter Health/Palo Alto Medical Foundation. When will I get access to the vaccine?
• Are unemployed health care workers eligible for the vaccine?
• Why did nursing home patients get the vaccine after health care workers?
• How can county leaders make sure the planned vaccination clinic at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds targets groups who have been hit the hardest, including Watsonville residents?
• How many vaccinations have been administered to date in Santa Cruz County? How many doses are available?
• What types of vaccines are available in Santa Cruz County?
• How effective are the vaccines?
• What do we not know about the Pfizer vaccine?
• What do we not know about the Moderna vaccine?
• What percentage of the population needs to get the vaccine to safely ease restrictions and social distancing rules?
• What are the side effects to the Pfizer vaccine?
• What are the side effects to the Moderna vaccine?
• Sucrose gives me migraines. Should I still take the vaccines, even though they contain sucrose?
• Submit your questions here.

When will I get access to the vaccine?

County leaders plan to follow the California Department of Public Health’s tiered phases that guide which groups get first access to the vaccine.

As of Jan. 24, the vaccine is available to:

• Health care workers in emergency rooms and intensive care units at Dominican Hospital and Watsonville Community Hospital
• Staff and residents of nursing homes
• Emergency medical technicians and paramedics
• Dialysis center staff
• Home health and in-home supportive services workers
• Public health workers
• Primary care staff 
• Dental and oral health workers
• Lab workers
• Pharmacy staff 
• Other health care workers
• People 75 and older who are existing patients of Sutter Health/Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Kaiser Permanente or Dignity Health Medical Group-Dominican
• Dignity Health Medical Group-Dominican patients who work in health care, education, child care, food services and agriculture as vaccine supply allows

About 15,000 county residents are health care workers, and county health leaders expect to reach them all by early February, Santa Cruz County Deputy Health Officer Dr. David Ghilarducci said in an interview Jan. 5.

Likely by February, vaccines will be made available for the next wave of residents, Ghilarducci said.

On Jan. 13, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that Californians 65 and older will be in the next phase.

That next phase also includes:

• Teachers and other educators
• Child care workers
• Food and agricultural workers
• Police officers, 911 dispatchers and other emergency service workers

Next, likely in February, comes:

• Workers in facilities, services, critical manufacturing, transportation and logistics. 
• People in jails
• Homeless people

The next phase, “Phase 1c”, has a timeline that’s harder to project, but could be in March, Ghilarducci said.

That phase includes:

• People 50 to 64
• People aged 16 to 49 and at high risk
• Workers in chemical, communications, information technology, defense, finance, government operations, community-based organizations, water and wastewater.

The vaccine will start to be available to everyone else 16 and older “maybe by early spring,” Ghilarducci said. Distribution of the vaccine across the entire community will likely take through fall 2021, he said.

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How will I know when it’s my turn to get the vaccine? Where will I go to get it?

The California Department of Public Health has launched a pilot site MyTurn for appointment scheduling and notifications. Santa Cruz County residents can register on the site to get notified when they’re eligible to get the vaccine, based on age, occupation and zip code.

Essential workers such as teachers and farmworkers will likely hear from their employer when it’s their turn to receive the vaccine. County health staff are working with large employers such as the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, agricultural growers and shippers, health clinics and other organizations to notify people about when it’s their turn to get the vaccine. 

The county will also post updates to its vaccination page. 

Most people will get the vaccine from the place they normally get their health care, such as Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health (Palo Alto Medical Foundation), Dominican Hospital, Watsonville Community Hospital and Salud Para La Gente. Many small clinics and doctor’s offices are not likely to be set up to administer the vaccine, Ghilarducci said.

County health leaders have asked the state public health department to set up a state-sponsored vaccination clinic to serve people who are not patients of the big health care providers.

A vaccination clinic for health care workers who have been unable to get the vaccine is expected in South County, likely at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville, by the end of January, Ghilarducci said in a Jan. 14 interview. South County residents have been disproportionately harmed by the virus, county data shows.

A North County vaccination clinic is also planned, but a site has not been determined. State leaders have not confirmed whether the state health department would sponsor these clinics, Ghilarducci said.

Health care workers who have not yet received the vaccine should ask their company or organization to submit a survey on their behalf to county health leaders to gain priority at the public vaccination clinics. Solo practitioners can also submit the survey.

A state website, CalVax, launched Jan. 13, that will list places to sign up for vaccination. Eventually, residents likely will be able to schedule appointments on this site, Ghilarducci said. As of Jan. 24, the website did not list any vaccination clinics in Santa Cruz County.

As of Jan. 14, the following health care providers have registered to administer the vaccine through the CalVax program, according to county data. Most have not received vaccines yet.

• Watsonville: Salud Para la Gente, 204 E. Beach St. Call 831-728-0222.
• Watsonville: Doctors on Duty, 1505 Main St. Call 831-722-1444. No vaccines available yet, Doctors on Duty staff said.
• Watsonville: Dr. Felix Huerta, 50 Penny Lane. Call 831-722-2010. No vaccines available yet, his staff said.
• Watsonville: Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency, 1430 Freedom Blvd.
• Watsonville: Planned Parenthood, 398 South Green Valley Road. 
• Watsonville: Satellite Healthcare Watsonville, 40 Penny Lane
• Watsonville: Watsonville Community Hospital, 75 Nielson St.
• Freedom: Central Coast Surgery Center, 160 Green Valley Road, Suite 101. 
• Freedom: Salud at Valle Verde, 252 Green Valley Rd.
• Santa Cruz: Doctors on Duty, 615 Ocean St., 831-425-7991. No vaccines yet, Doctors on Duty staff said.
• Santa Cruz: Safeway Pharmacy, 117 Morrissey Blvd. Call 831-426-8911 or visit Safeway’s website. No vaccines available yet, pharmacy staff confirmed. 
• Santa Cruz: Safeway Pharmacy, 2203 Mission St. Call 831-420-0781 or visit Safeway’s website.
• Santa Cruz: Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency, 1080 Emeline Ave.
• Santa Cruz: Santa Cruz Jail
• Santa Cruz: Santa Cruz Women’s Health Center, 250 Locust St.
• Santa Cruz: Homeless Persons Health Project, 115A Coral St.
• Santa Cruz: Planned Parenthood, 1119 Pacific Ave., Suite 200.
• Aptos: Doctors on Duty, 6800 Soquel Drive, 831-662-3611. No vaccines yet, Doctors on Duty staff said.
• Aptos: Safeway Pharmacy, 16 Rancho Del Mar. Call 831-661-4861 or visit Safeway’s website. No vaccines available yet, pharmacy staff confirmed. 
• Soquel: Safeway Pharmacy, 2720 41st Ave.  Call 831-426-8911 or visit Safeway’s website. Staff declined to comment.
• Live Oak: East Cliff Family Health Center, 21507 East Cliff Drive.
• Scotts Valley: Dr. David Resneck-Sannes, 5403 Scotts Valley Drive, 831- 438-5222. Office voicemail greeting said that the clinic has no COVID vaccines and no information on when they will receive it.
• Pajaro: Clinica de Salud del Valle de Salinas, 29-A Bishop Road.

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I’m a health care worker. How do I get the vaccine?

Health care workers who are existing patients of Sutter Health/Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Kaiser Permanente or Dignity Health Medical Group-Dominican should schedule an appointment with their medical provider. Scroll down for details.

Health care workers who are not patients at those medical systems should have their employer fill out a county survey. Self-employed workers can also fill out the survey. Santa Cruz County Public Health Department staff will contact survey respondents with the time, date and locations of vaccination clinics for health care workers. 

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I’m a Sutter Health/Palo Alto Medical Foundation patient. How do I get the vaccine?

Existing Sutter Health patients who are health care workers or 75 and older can call 844-987-6115 or log in to the MyHealthOnline portal to schedule a vaccination. 

More information is on the Sutter Health vaccine webpage. “Existing Sutter Health patients” are anyone who has received any health care at a Sutter Health or Palo Alto Medical Foundation clinic or walk-in care center — including flu shot clinics — within the last two years.

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I’m a Kaiser Permanente patient. How do I get the vaccine?

Kaiser Permanente patients who are eligible for the vaccine can call their primary care physician or call 866-454-8855.  As of Jan. 21, appointments are available for Kaiser Permanente patients who are health care workers, long-term care patients and staff, or 75 and older, according to the website.

Kaiser Permanente patients who are 65 and older do not need to contact their doctor.

“Our supplies are extremely low, so it will take time to offer everyone an appointment. We’re starting with those 75 and older. When supply is available, we’ll send you a letter or email with directions for scheduling your appointment,” according to the Kaiser Permanente website.

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I’m a Dignity Health Medical Group-Dominican patient. How do I get the vaccine?

Dignity Health Medical Group-Dominican patients are people who have primary care doctors in the Dignity Health Medical Group-Domincan system.  

As of Jan. 21, appointments are available for Dignity Health Medical Group-Dominican patients who are 75 and older or work in health care, education, child care, food services, and agriculture, as vaccine supply allows, according to a statement from Dr. Steve Magee, Dignity Health Medical Group-Dominican president.

Patients can contact their primary care doctor’s office to schedule an appointment. More information is the medical group’s website or at the group’s COVID vaccine line 831-288-6526.

Magee wrote that he anticipates the medical group can offer appointments to people 65 and older as soon as the week of Jan. 25.

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I’m a Santa Cruz Community Health Centers patient. How do I get the vaccine?

Santa Cruz Community Health Centers staff are vaccinating health care workers by invite only. The clinics are not taking calls to schedule vaccinations, Santa Cruz Community Health Centers Chief Medical Officer Dr. Casey KirkHart wrote in a Jan. 21 email to Santa Cruz Local.

Health centers patients who are 75 and older are “on ‘stand-by’ should we have extra doses to give,” KirkHart wrote. “We don’t want to leave a single dose in the vial.” 

The Santa Cruz Community Health Centers clinics are East Cliff Family Health Center in Live Oak and Santa Cruz Women’s Health Center in Santa Cruz.

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I’m older than 75 and not part of Kaiser Permanente, Dignity Health Medical Group-Domincan or Sutter Health/Palo Alto Medical Foundation. When will I get access to the vaccine?

The week of Jan. 24, county leaders hope to begin scheduling appointments for people 75 and older through federally-qualified health centers such as Santa Cruz Community Health Centers, Salud Para la Gente and the county-run clinics in Santa Cruz and Watsonville. Those clinics will start with targeted outreach to people 75 and older and 65 and older at especially high risk, Hall said. When county leaders are ready to accept registrations, the county’s vaccine website will be updated with a registration link. 

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Are unemployed health care workers eligible for the vaccine?

Yes. Unemployed health care workers can fill out a county survey. Santa Cruz County Public Health Department staff will contact survey respondents with the time, date and locations of vaccination clinics for health care workers.

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Why did nursing home patients get the vaccine after health care workers?

A top priority of county health leaders is to protect intensive care unit staff as hospital beds fill across the county, state and nation due to the virus. The first healthcare workers in Santa Cruz County received their first dose Dec. 16. Those vaccine shipments came from the California Department of Public Health.

Nursing home residents also are a top priority to receive the vaccine due to their group living situation and vulnerability to the disease. The first nursing home residents received their first dose about two weeks later, at the end of December. Not all nursing homes have received the vaccine, Ghilarducci said in a Jan. 14 interview. 

Nursing homes in the county receive their vaccine shipments from a federal program in partnership with CVS, Walgreens and Managed Health Care Associates, Inc. 

“It’s been a slow rollout. To be honest with you, we’re a little bit frustrated,” Ghilarducci said. “There’s a lot of residential care facilities that are signed up and haven’t even been scheduled yet. So we’d hoped that the federal pharmacy program would have moved faster. We’re watching it closely.”

Ghilarducci said vaccine shipments for nursing homes have been delayed, which makes it difficult to decide whether to reallocate some doses from the stock for health care workers. Also, nursing home vaccination requires a mobile team — staffing that the county does not have, but the federal program does, he said.

Nursing home patients account for the majority of the county’s COVID deaths, and the number continues to grow. As of Jan. 21, two-thirds of the county’s COVID deaths to date have been among nursing home patients, according to county data.

All seven of the skilled nursing facilities in the county have had COVID cases among staff or residents, county authorities said.

Dr. Ghilarducci said that ironically, nursing home patients have built a natural temporary immunity because so many of them have contracted the virus.

“They’ve been hit really hard. That’s where most of our deaths have come from. But they’re also now sort of relatively protected and ironically, make, you know, rapid vaccination, perhaps a little bit less urgent,” Ghilarducci said. “That said, there still are people in these nursing homes that have not contracted it, and they’re still at risk. And so there’s still a compelling reason to get, you know, get them vaccinated as quickly as we can.”

More data on COVID deaths in Santa Cruz County are listed on the county’s coronavirus website on the “demographics” tab.

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How can county leaders make sure the planned vaccination clinic at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds targets groups who have been hit the hardest, including Watsonville residents?

A test run of a drive-through vaccination clinic at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds is planned for the week of Jan. 24 for a few hundred health care workers by invite only. Once fully operational, the clinic can handle 1,000 vaccinations a day.

The limiting factor is vaccine supply. County leaders have been told by state leaders to expect 200 to 2,000 vaccine doses a week until more manufacturers’ vaccines are approved by the FDA, Health Services Agency Director Mimi Hall said.

There are at least three vaccines that are in late-phase clinical trials, according to the New York Times. Two are expected to be approved this spring at the earliest.

When the county has enough vaccines, people will be able to register. Health department staff will screen registrations by risk, age and zip code so people most at risk get priority. County health leaders will use the California Healthy Places Index to determine zip codes that get priority at county-run vaccination clinics.

“So for Santa Cruz County, that’s pretty much all of Watsonville, and then a portion of Mid County in Live Oak, and then a portion of North County in Beach Flats,” Hall said. “So we know that going forward, we will be overlaying the case rates and the death rates that we see in those communities and making sure that we equalize those by where we focus our available vaccine.”

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How many vaccinations have been administered to date in Santa Cruz County? How many doses are available?

As of Jan. 13, Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency had received about 16,700 doses — enough for about 8,350 people, Ghilarducci said. About 6,000 doses have been administered. The county received about 10,000 doses in recent days. The week of Jan. 18, county leaders expect a total shipment of 200 doses.

Santa Cruz County has about 14,700 health care workers eligible for the vaccine. 

Until recently, the county received about 2,000 doses a week from the state department of public health. Ghilarducci said he’s not sure why next week’s shipment is so small. It could be because doses are allocated to nursing homes instead. Also, the count does not include doses shipped directly to large health care providers such as Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health.

County health leaders do not know the exact tallies of residents vaccinated, or the number vaccine doses that arrive in the county. 

The California Immunization Registry “has some real data problems,” Ghilarducci said. Thousands of records in Santa Cruz County’s report appear to be Alameda County patients, he said.

“It sounds like maybe some sloppy data entry or something like that. So you can see we’re having lots of problems. We don’t know how much vaccine is coming. We don’t know how many people are in each group. And we also don’t know who else is getting the vaccine that we otherwise would get. So  it’s problematic, and we’re pulling our hair out,” Ghilarducci said.

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What types of vaccines are available in Santa Cruz County?

The first batch of vaccines shipped to the county in mid-December were made by Pfizer, an American multinational pharmaceutical company, and its partner, the German firm BioNTech. These vaccines come in two doses administered three weeks apart. The vaccine is stored in a special freezer, which presents some logistical challenges, Santa Cruz County Chief of Public Health Jennifer Herrera said.

A different vaccine, made by Massachusetts-based company Moderna, was recently authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is now available in Santa Cruz County. The Moderna vaccine is taken in two doses 28 days apart.

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How effective are the vaccines?

Data released so far show that both vaccines are “extremely effective, more effective than we thought they would be,” said Marm Kilpatrick, the UC Santa Cruz professor who studies infectious diseases.

Analysis of about 37,000 participants in a trial of the Pfizer vaccine showed the vaccine was 95% effective at preventing COVID-19, seven days after the second dose. There were eight COVID cases in the group that received the vaccine and 162 COVID cases in the placebo group. 

A trial of about 30,000 people to test the Moderna vaccine showed an efficacy rate of 94.1%. There were 11 COVID cases in the vaccine group and 185 cases in the placebo group.

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What do we not know about the Pfizer vaccine?

• How long vaccine protection lasts: The trial lasted months, not years.
• How well the vaccine prevents transmission: Analysis is still needed.
• How well the virus prevents serious illness: The trials tested for how well the vaccine protects against any COVID infection, and showed it was 95% effective. More testing is needed to determine how well it protects against severe COVID illness.

The vaccine “probably reduces people’s infectiousness, but I wouldn’t bet my life on ‘probably,’” Kilpatrick said. 

“We don’t actually have data to back up anything except if you get exposed, your chance of symptomatic illness now is 95% lower starting seven days after your second dose. That’s the strongest, clearest thing we can say,” Kilpatrick said.

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What do we not know about the Moderna vaccine?

• How long vaccine protection lasts: Scientists have a few months of data, not years.

However, more data is available about the Moderna vaccine than the Pfizer vaccine on how well it prevents transmission and serious illness. 

• Transmission: There is limited data on how well the Moderna vaccine prevents transmission. However, a trial of about 28,000 people showed that the first dose of the vaccine resulted in a roughly two-thirds reduction in the percentage of people with asymptomatic infections after the first dose, compared to the placebo group.
• Serious illness: Data suggests that the Moderna vaccine does offer protection against serious illness. In a trial of about 28,000 people, 30 people in the placebo group had serious COVID-19 illness, compared to zero in the vaccinated group.

Marm Kilpatrick, the UC Santa Cruz professor, said that the data shows “really, really strong evidence” that the Moderna vaccine is effective at preventing severe illness. He said the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines work similarly and given a choice, he’d take either.

“It’s not that the Moderna one’s great, and the Pfizer one’s not good. It’s that the Moderna one we have really robust evidence, and the Pfizer one, just due to the number of illnesses that they had at the time that they did the analysis, are not high enough to really know for the Pfizer vaccine,” Kilpatrick said.

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What percentage of the population needs to get the vaccine to safely ease restrictions and social distancing rules?

That depends on how fast a new strain of the virus spreads, said Kilpatrick, the UCSC professor. Preliminary data shows that the new strain is about 50% more transmissible than previous strains, Kilpatrick said.

“And if that’s the case, then you’ll actually have to increase the fraction of people that are vaccinated even higher, to see substantial reductions in transmission,” Kilpatrick said. “So as I’m looking at things, I think we can see a huge decrease in death just by getting the nursing home residents vaccinated, and then [the people older than 75], and another big decrease by getting the 65-and-overs. And at that point, we’ll have covered most people that are dying. We’ll still have a bunch of people that will get sick and sometimes hospitalized. And then we can kind of chip away at that, as we get both older people and some of the people that are frontline workers that are getting exposed the most.

“But then, we’re not going to get down to no masks, regular parties and large gatherings of people until a really high fraction of the population gets either vaccinated or infected, or both. And with the new strain, that number is probably going to be somewhere in the, like 80% to 90% range. So that’s a little bit of uncertainty, if you go back to the original strain that we have now. And if the new strain ends up being not as infectious as it looks like so far, then that number could have been as low as between 60% and 70%. But now, if the data turned out to be correct, then it’ll be closer to 80% to 90%,” Kilpatrick said.

As of Jan. 5, among hospital workers in Santa Cruz County, 70% of those offered the vaccine have taken it. Thirty percent have said no or said they want to wait before they take it, Ghilarducci said.

“I think we’re going to be living with this virus for the rest of our lives. And just like we have to live with polio and measles and mumps, these are viruses that are now part of our human existence. And the best way — the only way, I should say — to control this is to have broad acceptance of vaccination programs to do this,” Ghilarducci said. “We’ve essentially eradicated polio from this country — it does exist in other countries — but the only reason we’ve been able to do that is because we have good polio vaccine acceptance rates. So the same will be true for COVID going forward. And, you know, at some point, probably it’ll be required for children to get this before they go to school, just like other vaccines, but it also will be heavily recommended for people in high risk groups and so forth. 

“Really, I think people need to understand this, is that this vaccine is really our only path out of this. And people have, you know, concerns, I certainly understand that. And I think that’s normal and natural. But the benefit of these vaccines in general far outweigh any small risks. And I really encourage people to get real information, to get information from reputable sources and not from social media, regarding this vaccine and other aspects of COVID,” Ghilarducci said.

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What are the side effects to the Pfizer vaccine?

According to a Pfizer fact sheet, some people reported side effects of the vaccine, including:

• injection site pain, swelling and redness
• fatigue
• headache
• muscle pain
• chills
• joint pain
• fever
• nausea
• feeling unwell
• swollen lymph nodes (lymphadenopathy)

The side effects could be felt after either dose, but are usually more severe after the second dose, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration website.

In a trial of about 37,000 participants, the most common side effects were injection site reactions (84% of people), fatigue (63%) and muscle pain (38%), lasting a few days. 

“The vaccine effects are, you know, one to two days long, and the lasting effects of COVID could be months,” Kilpatrick said. He added that he hopes that will convince younger people to get the vaccine.

There is a chance that the vaccine could cause a severe allergic reaction. People who have had severe allergic reactions to any ingredients of the vaccine should not take it. The vaccine has not been authorized for use with children 15 and younger.

According to the Pfizer fact sheet, the vaccine ingredients are: mRNA, lipids ((4-hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2-hexyldecanoate), 2 [(polyethylene glycol)-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide, 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3- phosphocholine, and cholesterol), potassium chloride, monobasic potassium phosphate, sodium chloride, dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate and sucrose. It is injected with sodium chloride.

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