Eligibility for vaccines to be released in LA despite vaccine shortage

Los Angeles, CA — Los Angeles has “turned the curve” again, recovering from a surge in coronavirus that has so far killed more than 1,000 people each week. But as a sign of an ongoing struggle to stay ahead of the pandemic, the city of Los Angeles will have to close its large clinic for at least the rest of the week due to a vaccine shortage.

When the lights of Dodger Stadium, the country’s largest vaccine site, dimmed, President Joe Biden announced a contract to get enough vaccine for 300 million people by July. Also on Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, predicted that anyone who wants the vaccine would have access to the vaccine by April.

“By April, I think that’s what I call the” open season. ” This means that virtually everyone and anyone in any category can start getting vaccinated, “Forch told NBC. Today’s show.

Until these vaccines arrive, residents continue to vie for a limited supply of vaccines in Los Angeles, and health officials warn residents to pay attention to health orders, avoid rallies, and protect themselves by double masking. Continue to encourage.With holiday weekends and Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year just a few days away, authorities urged residents not to disappoint guards, plunging the area into another surge.

“LA County has made encouraging progress this month on all key indicators,” Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a statement. “Let’s not retreat to our recovery journey. We experience that regular meetings, parties, and other activities with non-household members on holidays lead to increased infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. I know from

“To keep the transmission speed slow, we need to limit the number of people we interact with,” she said. “If you don’t get together, you’ll save your life.”

Authorities are worried that the decline in incidents will tempt residents to complacency when Los Angeles County appears to be on the verge of a new reopening.

The county reported that 3,489 new cases were on Thursday. This is only a small percentage of the daily number of cases reported a month ago. In Los Angeles County, 150 coronavirus deaths were reported on Thursday, dozens less than the daily average for the past few weeks. The death toll in the overall pandemic area reached 18,678 on Thursday.

According to state statistics, as of Thursday, 3,604 people were admitted to the county for COVID and 1,067 were in the intensive care unit.

County officials said a week ago, just under 5,000 people were hospitalized for the virus. The number exceeded 8,000 in early January.

Despite continuing concerns about vaccine shortages, the county plans to extend Shot’s eligibility to a variety of key workers, including teachers and other key workers.

Shots are offered to workers in three categories: education / childcare; food and agriculture; emergency services and law enforcement. In Los Angeles County, these categories represent about 1.3 million people. This means that even after being shot, it will take several weeks to get all the vaccinations, and you will need to get two vaccinations every 3-4 weeks.

Vaccine eligibility expansion also occurs if the county continues to administer shots to currently eligible populations (healthcare workers, residents, nursing and care facility staff, residents aged 65 and over). Feller said on Wednesday that to date, only 20% of residents over the age of 65 have received at least one dose.

“At this point, we want to take a big step towards vaccination of older people,” she said. “… Our hope is that the number of older people vaccinated will increase in the next two weeks, but we also acknowledge that we have to start. Some of our essential workers. It would be really hard to wait weeks, weeks or weeks for us to complete the entire sector before we move on. “

Major pharmacy chains such as CVS will start vaccination to increase vaccination coverage.

Meanwhile, a large county-operated vaccination site will only offer a second dose of the double dose regimen for the rest of the week. The county-operated sites are located at Pomona Fairplex, Inglewood Forums, Northridge, California, Downey County Education Department, Magic Mountains in Valencia, Encino’s Balboa Sports Complex, and El Sereno Recreation Center.

City News Service contributed to this report.