COVID-19 Vaccine Eligibility Expands As LA County Passes Severe Milestones – Daily News

State-wide vaccine eligibility will extend to all at least 16 years of age in mid-April. Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday morning, March 25, that Los Angeles County received a cool reminder that the virus remained a threat. The number of related deaths exceeds 23,000.

Newsam announced a state-wide eligibility expansion on Twitter shortly before visiting the Santa Ana Vaccination Center on Thursday morning. In the evening, Los Angeles County health officials announced they would line up. People over the age of 50 can be vaccinated from April 1st. People over the age of 16 will be vaccinated from April 15th.

The expansion will take place two weeks before May 1, the target date set by President Joe Biden to open the vaccine to all states.

“Today’s state announcement means that everyone over the age of 16 will be vaccinated in mid-April,” Barbara Ferrer, director of the LA County Public Health Service, said in a statement Thursday. “By expanding vaccine eligibility in the coming weeks, the higher the dose in the county, the more likely it is that more people will be vaccinated.”

However, the doses available in the county are below the required dose, health officials say, and vaccination can be more difficult, especially if demand increases with expansion.

According to a county statement, “LA County’s vaccination site continues to operate below its capacity, allowing weekly immunization of more than twice the number of residents allowed by current quotas. . “

According to the online dashboard, the county had about 3.2 million doses as of last week, of which about 1 million were second shots.

However, Newsom said Thursday that he expects a rapid increase in vaccine supply.

California received 2.5 million vaccinations last week. By the end of next month, it will be possible to administer 4 million doses a week, Newsum said.

“Our ability to do more has always been constrained by supply, manufacturing and supply,” Newsom said. “We are now confident that manufacturing supplies will be available sooner than we expected.”

However, it is unclear how that projected increase will be filtered to the local health jurisdiction.

But Long Beach says that as part of that, it has already seen supply increase. The city, which has its own health sector, was assigned 16,970 additional doses on Thursday and reported a 27,220 increase in supply last week.

Long Beach also announced Thursday Immediately after starting vaccination for people over 50 years old. However, the city did not have an estimate of when to start vaccination of people over the age of 16.

“We promise to allow as many people as possible to be vaccinated, and now all residents of Long Beach and workers over the age of 50 are vaccinated,” said Mayor Robert Garcia. Eligible to receive. “

Pasadena, which also has its own health department, reiterated Los Angeles County concerns about vaccine supply.

Dr. Ying Ying Goh, director of public health at the city, said Pasadena would like to join Los Angeles County and expand its vaccine eligibility. But doing so depends on the city’s increased vaccine supply, she added.

Even with increased supply, Go said the city still has a myriad of technical issues to address, from increasing staff at vaccination sites to fixing bugs in the state’s registration portal.

Meanwhile, LA County said the supply of fear strengthened the county’s priority to inoculate people in the most devastated communities.

“Our priority is to ensure that residents and workers in the affected communities are each vaccinated,” Feller said in a statement. “As eligibility grows, we will double our efforts to increase the availability and availability of vaccines in communities with the highest risk and lowest vaccination rates.”

However, the increased eligibility of the vaccine has been similar to what LA County has called another “catastrophic milestone”, the death of 23,000 people.

An additional 66 residents died from coronavirus-related causes, the Public Health Service reported on Thursday, with deaths reaching 23,020. In addition, 608 newly confirmed cases have been reported, bringing the total to 1.2 million since the pandemic began.