This week, RCRC along with our county partners the California State Association of Counties, the Urban Counties of California, County Health Executives Association of California, and the Health Officers Association of California sent a letter to Governor Newsom which outlined the challenges local health jurisdictions are facing in the administration of vaccines.  The letter also provided urgent recommendations that will aid in a more efficient and coordinated effort – and thus result in vaccinating as many Californians as quickly as possible. 

From the local perspective, counties believe the most critical issues for the state to address are data transparency and timely reporting.  Local health departments believe there are significant data lags and reporting challenges that result in a significant underreporting of California’s progress.  California’s vaccination efforts are coordinated between multiple vaccination partners, including the Federal Pharmacy Partnership, multi-county entities, and local health departments.  Some of California’s challenges arise from the lack of transparency between these various entities. With all of this in mind, the recommendations provided by RCRC and our county partners focus on addressing issues of:

  • timely and accurate reporting by providing staff to support the California Immunization Registry (CAIR2) system; auditing the system to address issues causing increased workload for providers; providing additional system training to vaccinating entities; and instituting state level enforcement strategies to help ensure data is entered within 24 hours.
  • data transparency by providing local health jurisdictions with access to additional data from the CAIR2 system so they can see the doses being allocated, received, and administered throughout the state, in order to assess whether they are being provided enough vaccine.
  • dependable vaccine allocation by making the supply predictable, providing allocation amounts one month in advance, and increasing allocations to keep up with local health department plans to ramp up vaccination efforts.
  • accountability for all vaccination partners by holding CVS/Walgreens and multi-county entities accountable for timely reporting at the local jurisdiction level, and by supporting the redirection of vaccines from the Federal Pharmacy Partnership to local health departments, where feasible, if implementation is otherwise delayed.

The full list of recommendations can be viewed in the letter here. For more information, contact Sarah Dukett, Legislative Advocate at (916) 447-4806 or sdukett@rcrcnet.org.