The Blue Shield will be appointed to lend their services that could support and control the COVID-19. The team will accelerate and increase the COVID19 vaccinations according to their contract agreement signed with Newsom. The Blue Shield will be able to claim up to $15 million from the state on account of third-party and nonstaff costs. The staff time will be considered free. The contract states that urban residents will have to travel 30 minutes and rural residents have to travel 1 hour to reach any of their vaccine distribution sites. The vaccine will be made available to people of 58 counties who cannot leave their homes. The 95% of doses of the vaccine will be administered as soon as they receive. If the supplies are received in time, Blue Shield will be distributing 3 million vaccines each week starting from March 1st. The distribution quantity is to spike to 4 million vaccines by the end of April.
Blue Shield To The Rescue With $15 Million Contract COVID -19 Vaccination In California
Blue Shield will create an algorithm to allocate COVID19 vaccines in California. The company will try to source more vaccine doses to prevent the widespread and save people’s lives. The vaccination program will be centralized and improved when compared to the slow start to the campaign due to insufficient doses of vaccines, complex and stringent regulations. 6 million people have been administered recently in the state and California alone needs nearly 1 million vaccines every week.
Another breakthrough will be when Kaiser Permanente healthcare services will sign a separate contract with California so that it could help people of the state to get vaccinated. They will oversee a couple of sites where mass vaccination is possible. So this would be a helpful way to support a population of communities that live in rural and hard to reach areas.
Blue Shield and Kaiser Permanente have agreed to run the vaccination activities in a cost-efficient way without having any benefits. Blue Shield has signed a contract that states that the cost won’t exceed $15M. The Governor and the officials responsible to bring these healthcare providers into act assures that the vaccinations will be administered equitably and quickly along with creating reliable and relevant data. The vaccination takeover process has delayed only because of the slow arrival of vaccines. This shortage of vaccines has failed to acquire accurate data that shows administering shot progression.
Some of the counties were skeptical and criticized the vaccination program although many others are happy to join and be part of this vaccination campaign
With Governor Newsom’s authority, the deal with Blue Shield and Kaiser was approved under an emergency circumstance without any legislative approval. Since Blue Shield has played a crucial role in California political campaigns, they have spent $1 million to support Newsom’s campaign in 2018 and $1.3 million in 2020. They helped homeless people with $20 million through another campaign under Newsom.
Newsom defended well again the criticisms and he stated that Kaiser and Blue Shield are 2 nonprofit agencies that are well capable to allocate and distribute the exact support and help infected people with assurance and safety through vaccinations
