San Diego County's public health system received its first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Monday, Dec. 14, and, in the days that followed, began sending them to local hospitals in an effort to first protect the health care workers dealing first-hand with COVID-19 patients.
The county will receive 28,000 doses by the time Pfizer finishes shipping its first round of their COVID-19 vaccine. It's not clear exactly how many doses the county has received so far, but more shipments were expected to arrive before the week was through.
Almost immediately after vaccines arrived, several local hospitals began vaccinating their top-priority staff, based on recommendations outlined by the Centers for Disease Control's Advisory Committee on Immunization Prevention.
Each of the county’s health care systems has put in their requests for the vaccine based on their needs. Some chose to disclose how many doses they have received to NBC 7. See a breakdown of where the medicine is going below.
The Department of Defense received its own allocation of vaccinations. Military personnel working in health care facilities were among the first to be vaccinated, but the number of doses given did not affect San Diego County's overall supply.
The vaccine came at a critical time in San Diego County's fight against the novel coronavirus. ICU capacity in the Southern California continued to drop sharply, reaching its lowest point so far -- 1.7% -- on Tuesday.
But those receiving the vaccine first were cautiously optimistic the vaccine could be the beginning of the end.
Coronavirus Deaths in Your City and State — and Across the US
These charts use daily coronavirus death data from Johns Hopkins University to show the seven-day moving average of deaths at the city, state and country level.
The impact of coronavirus varies enormously in the United States from one place to another.
Source: Johns Hopkins University. Data for San Diego also includes Imperial County.
Credit: Visuals by Amy O’Kruk/NBC, data analysis by Ron Campbell/NBC
