State data highlight the disparities in COVID-19 vaccination rates across Santa Barbara County, showing which areas have better vaccine-induced immunity against the potentially deadly virus and where progress lags.
More than 230,600 Santa Barbara County residents were fully vaccinated for the coronavirus last week, according to the county’s Community Data Dashboard. That is roughly 60% of the county’s 12-and-older residents who are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
California’s COVID-19 vaccine data show vaccination rates administered by ZIP code, and the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department uses the information to guide vaccination and outreach by region.
Each ZIP code is also assigned a vaccine equity metric score that considers social determinants of health, such as income, education and access to health care for residents in that area.
“They range from the less healthy community conditions in quartile one to the more healthy community conditions in quartile four,” department director Van Do-Reynoso told Noozhawk.
“Our task is to make sure that the underserved community members have access to vaccination in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner,” she added. “We have been working on that and we’re seeing a corresponding traction in those specific communities.”
There are two ZIP codes in Santa Barbara County that are ranked in the first quartile: 93434 and 93458 in Santa Maria.
These lower-quartile ZIP codes report lower vaccination rates than most other county areas, and are also among the communities that historically have reported higher cases of the virus, Do-Reynoso said.
As of last week, the Summerland-area 93067, which has about 400 residents, had the highest vaccination rate in the county (almost 100%) while the Casmalia-area 93429 had the lowest vaccination rate, around 32%.
“The data are used for laser-focused intervention in our messaging, outreach and education so that we can move the needle in the community living in that ZIP code,” Do-Reynoso said.
“With the Delta variant circulating, we feel a sense of urgency to make sure that we stay the course, and are now even more nuanced in our messaging so that a specific ZIP code and its community members can really hear the message and we can address their concerns.”
The Public Health Department has 23 community partners to help with vaccination outreach, she said.
“The message to the indigenous migrant farmworkers, for example, has to be culturally appropriate, linguistically appropriate, and it has to be in a manner that can be received,” Do-Reynoso said.
“When we go into the faith-based communities, we need to make sure that our partner is speaking in a way that the faith-based community can hear and understand to reduce their level of hesitancy.”
The department has been cold calling various housing communities, workplaces, and other areas to engage people and ask if the department can send one of its four mobile vaccine clinics to the site, Do-Reynoso added.
“Any of the ZIP codes where there isn’t a readily available place to get vaccinated, we’ve partnered up with people to bring our mobile clinics there,” she said.
Breaking it down by region, just over 43% of the North County (Santa Maria Valley, Guadalupe, Cuyama Valley areas) population is fully vaccinated, 42.6% of the Mid County (the Lompoc and Santa Ynez valleys) population is fully vaccinated, and just over 59% of the South Coast population is fully vaccinated, according to the dashboard.
About 11,700 doses have been administered at Vandenberg Space Force Base, and those doses are not included in the county dashboard totals since they are not reported directly to the state, according to the county.
The majority of the ZIP codes in the county have vaccination rates between 60% and 70% of the eligible population, according to data published July 13. Several more have rates in the 50% to 60% range.
Strengthening Vaccine Efforts
People who wanted to get vaccinated and had access got shots into their arms, said Steve Clarke, medical director at the Community Health Centers of the Central Coast.
“We got the low-hanging fruit,” he said. “The people who are like, please give me a vaccine … that group has already been vaccinated.”
Community Health Centers of the Central Coast, or CHC, has locations in Santa Maria, Lompoc, New Cuyama, Guadalupe and Los Alamos in northern Santa Barbara County, as well as San Luis Obispo County.
The best conversations with people who are reluctant to become vaccinated or “vaccine deniers” have often occurred with their doctor, nurse practitioner or physician assistant, Clarke said, or “the people who have a relationship with them.”
Vaccine-related conversations with CHC staff take place during in-person or telehealth visits.
Unvaccinated people have expressed worry about the side effects after their COVID-19 vaccine, he said.
“Even the rare side effects to vaccines are much smaller statistically than actually getting COVID,” Clarke said. “Those conversations, especially with someone they trust, who they already have a previous relationship with — that seems to be helpful.”
Clarke said a nurse practitioner at CHC’s Cambria site helped answer questions for patients and address their concerns.
“She is our success story about not only making vaccines available, but making sure those people who had worries and doubts had as much answers as we can with a still emerging illness that we don’t know everything about, and the safety of vaccines as compared to getting COVID,” Clarke said.
Clarke said he is “extremely pleased” with the public health effort to vaccinate the oldest residents and people at higher risk of infection and dying from the COVID-19.
“We have reached a lot of those people already,” Clarke said. “Even though we still don’t have the vaccination rates throughout the county and the state that we would like, that group most at risk … there’s a lot of good effort happening.”
Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics, which runs a network of medical and dental clinics for patients, regardless of their ability to pay, has had a robust vaccination effort.
Of approximately 36,000 patients who consider SBNC to be their medical home, about 17,000 have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, said Dr. Charles Fenzi, CEO and chief medical officer of SBNC.
SBNC has helped increase access to vaccinations to community groups and people who could otherwise have a difficult time getting vaccinated at other sites.
Members of the organization have walked Santa Barbara’s Milpas Street corridor to see if businesses were interested in conducting on-site vaccination clinics.
“At one of the places, we were able to get three people vaccinated through that effort,” Fenzi said.
Now, SBNC moved its COVID-19 vaccine access to each of its clinics.
A portable, ultra-cold temperature freezer from Santa Barbara-based Direct Relief is being used to transport vaccines from clinic to clinic.
“We can store our Pfizer vaccines in this, and transport it around to our clinics,” Fenzi said. “What we’re doing now is opening up a vial of Moderna or Pfizer, every morning … it’s good in our refrigerator for 30 days.
“If we see people in the office who are vaccine hesitant, and if our providers are successfully talking that individual into getting a shot at that moment — we can do it right then,” he added.
SBNC is addressing vaccine hesitancy among individuals and answering questions and concerns about getting a vaccination, as well as debunking conspiracy theories.
“It ranges from all sorts of stuff,” Fenzi said.
Barriers to vaccination include the fear of needles, and some have expressed concern about the COVID-19 vaccine development and possible side effects.
“The bottom line is, education, and it’s often one-on-one education,” Fenzi said. “There’s still a lot of hesitancy and questions.”
SBNC is working to get a message out to unvaccinated people: COVID-19 vaccines are “safe and incredibly important,” Fenzi said.
“It’s about protecting the whole community,” said Clarke, from CHC. “We’re not going to get this thing past us until enough of us are immune, and the virus has no place to go.”
Fenzi said there are some patients “who just simply don’t want to have the vaccine,” and others who do not show up for their second-dose appointments.
SBNC staff would call patients the day before appointments for reminders, he added.
“Toward the end of our clinics, we found that we were having upward of 20% to 50% no-show rate,” Fenzi said.
He noted that some patients received their second dose from a different provider, or did not want to get the second dose for some reason.
People who received a Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine will need two shots to get the strongest protection against the virus, according to public health officials.
People should get the second dose “even if you have side effects after the first shot, unless a vaccination provider or your doctor tells you not to get it,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Visit the Public Health Department website or MyTurn for COVID-19 vaccination locations in the county, including walk-up appointments.
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com and staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at jmartinez-pogue@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
