A new report from the San
Luis Obispo County Grand Jury looks into the county’s response to the COVID-19
pandemic, providing recommendations based on the members’ findings.
The 26-page report
released this week states the Grand Jury received complaints from citizens who
said the county “did not act fast enough and appropriately in managing the
distribution of vaccines in response to the life-threatening pandemic facing
SLO County residents.”
The report calls the
pandemic “the single largest event to upend the way of life in San Luis Obispo
County (SLO County or the County) in decades” and because of that, the Grand
Jury felt it was important to look into how the county responded.
It details vaccinations
and the difficulties the county had with receiving vaccines in early 2021 and how
they prioritized who received them and when.
Despite an “unknown and
unreliable supply,” the Grand Jury says the county did a “commendable job” in
responding to the public health emergency.
The report also states SLO
County “was one of the few counties in the State to provide mass vaccination
clinics and moved quickly to set them up before receiving directions from the
State.”
The Grand Jury did not
find fault with the county’s response, but did provide recommendations to the
county based on the investigation, including:
Conducting lessons-learned
evaluations with people who participated in its COVID-19 vaccination response
Documenting what went
right during pandemic response and what could be improved upon for the next
major community health threat
Reviewing existing
emergency plans for mass vaccination events and making sure lessons learned
from the COVID-19 response are incorporated when appropriate
Developing a process to
educate the public every so often about the county’s response to another public
health emergency
Proactively and as needed
provide mental health services to county employees who experienced stress as a
result of COVID-19 pandemic response
Interviews conducted by
the Grand Jury were done prior to the surge in Delta-variant cases in late
summer of 2021.
KSBY.com
Staff
March 2, 2022
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