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Friday, February 14, 2025
CoronavirusSanta Clara County update: Vaccines on the way as hospitals stretched to...

Santa Clara County update: Vaccines on the way as hospitals stretched to their limit

Santa Clara County is on track to receive 39,300 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine created by Moderna later in December, but whether or not that happens depends upon whether or not the U.S. government grants an Emergency Use Authorization for the drug.

In the meantime, the county is also awaiting 17,550 doses of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. Healthcare workers in clinics, doctor’s offices, and nursing homes will be first in line for the shots, along with nursing home residents. Other residents will be positioned to receive their doses in the weeks and months to come.

Per the county’s recently drafted vaccine plan, the vaccine rollout will aim to be swift, fair, and efficient amid complex storage requirements often calling for extremely low temperatures. 

Since the start of the pandemic in March, 43,001 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Santa Clara County, and 515 of those people have died. Countywide, hospitals’ ICU capacity is severely stretched, with only 10% of all ICU beds available, or 31 beds in total. Twenty-eight percent of all occupied ICU beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients. 

New lockdown conditions mandate staying at home for all nonessential activities, and experts continue to strongly advise social distancing, mask-wearing, and hand-washing, while also advising people not to travel.

 

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Eric Shapiro
Eric Shapiro
Eric Shapiro is a writer & filmmaker. As a screenwriter, he’s won a Fade In Award and written numerous feature films in development by companies including WWE, Mandalay Sports Media, Game1, and Select Films. He is also the resident script doctor for Rebel Six Films (producers of A&E’s “Hoarders”). As a journalist, Eric’s won a California Journalism Award and is co-owner and editor of The Milpitas Beat, a Silicon Valley newspaper with tens of thousands of monthly readers that has won the Golden Quill Award as well as the John Swett Award for Media Excellence. As a filmmaker, Eric’s directed award-winning feature films that have premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival, Fantastic Fest, and Shriekfest, and been endorsed by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Eric’s apocalyptic novella “It’s Only Temporary” appears next to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” on Nightmare Magazine’s list of the 100 Best Horror Novels of All Time. He lives in Northern California with his wife, Rhoda, and their two sons.

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