San Luis Obispo County is stepping up mobile vaccination clinics throughout the area in an effort to encourage people to take the COVID-19 vaccine, especially as the Delta variant is spreading.
The Delta variant, first detected in India, is now increasing in numbers throughout the world. Dr. Penny Borenstein, SLO County’s public health officer said this variant has shown to spread more easily.
"I’m most concerned about people who are unvaccinated getting this disease," Borenstein said. "The research is still ongoing, but it may take a greater toll on people's health.”
California’s coronavirus restrictions were lifted on June 15. While there has been no official word whether some mandates may come back, Borenstein said we aren’t out of the woods yet with COVID.
“I certainly don’t want to be overly doom and gloom," Borenstein said. "I think we are in a pretty good place, but I would feel much better if we had much higher vaccination.”
Borenstien said SLO County still has a large portion of the population unvaccinated, making them susceptible to the virus and its variants.
As of Tuesday, 63.3 percent of SLO County’s eligible vaccine population has had any vaccine, and 55.1 percent has completed the vaccine series — either the one-dose Johnson & Johnson, or the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna.
“So what that means," Borenstein said. "We still have almost four out of ten of the eligible population, that's not even counting children less than the age of 12, who can get vaccinated, with rare exceptions, who are not.”
Because of this, the health department is hosting mobile vaccination clinics throughout the county, trying to encourage people through convenience to take the free vaccine.
“Some of that involves even us going door to door," Borenstein said. "Letting people know we are in your community right now, today.”
Borenstein said she knows there are some people who are adamantly opposed to getting the vaccine, and cannot be convinced.
“It’s the people in the middle that really need to feel safe about this vaccine and be armed with information so that they are ready to now take it," Borenstein said. "We’d like that to happen sooner, rather than later.”
The next mobile clinic will be in Los Osos Thursday, July 8 from 1 to 4 p.m. at Los Osos Middle School.
