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Los Angeles County will not speed up coronavirus vaccines for people 65 and older, despite California officials announced Wednesday, Jan.13 that local authorities have the capacity to do so immediately.
LA County officials on Wednesday reported 281 more deaths and 14,564 cases. Nearly 13,000 people have died from COVID-19 in LA County to date with reported deaths averaging 231 per day over the past week. The county has also approached a million total confirmed cases, meaning that about one in 10 county residents was at some point infected with the coronavirus.
With as many as 800,000 health workers and residents of long-term care facilities to be vaccinated first, LA County officials said they still did not have enough vaccines to expand its strategy. Residents over the age of 65 in LA County would likely be eligible to receive a vaccine by early February, although there is a chance that the process will speed up if more vaccines are delivered. state and county, officials said.
“I know how frustrating this must sound to the people of LA County now,” said Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer. “We are not done with our healthcare workers. And we actually don’t have enough vaccines right now to be able to act faster with our healthcare workers. “
Orange County has become one of the first in the state to take advantage of the state’s latest announcement to begin recruiting people 65 and older to receive a coronavirus vaccine.
Long Beach, which runs its own health department, announced earlier this week that vaccines would be available for people 65 and older starting January 23.
Pasadena also has its own health department, where spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said public health officials always had fewer vaccines than they needed to immunize all of the city’s healthcare workers. Right now, officials don’t expect that to change until next week, Derderian said, but they hope to expand the pool of eligible patients as soon as they have enough doses.
Pasadena officials say they have far more senior care facilities per capita than other parts of the county. More facilities means more health workers to vaccinate before they can start vaccinating the public.
A spokesperson for LA mayor Eric Garcetti said he agreed with the county’s decision and the city is aligned with it.
So far, the county has inoculated about 194,000 healthcare workers in acute care hospitals as well as a significant portion of residents and staff in long-term care facilities. In addition, 44,000 health workers have so far received their last doses.
Ferrer said state guidelines help clarify that in Phase 1B, after healthcare workers, people 65 and older will be eligible along with other members of this group. At first, people aged 75 and over had priority. Registration is not yet available for either of these groups, which also include those in emergency services and teachers. More information can be found at VaccinateLACounty.com.
The state’s decision on Monday to open vaccines for those over 65 followed federal guidelines this week, just as the state ranked among the slowest in the country, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control.
In the months leading up to the LA County deployment, officials planned to inoculate about 350,000 healthcare workers by the end of December, but those expectations, like those of the states and the country, were insufficient. Now the county expects to have vaccinated 500,000 by the end of January.
To date, the county has opened 75 vaccine distribution centers. This week, Dodger Stadium was being converted from a testing site to a vaccination center and the first injections are expected to be given there on Thursday. On Tuesday, five more large-scale vaccination centers that can handle more than 1,000 vaccinations per day will be opened, officials said.
By almost every measurement, the level of transmission of the coronavirus and the track record it has made – not to mention the impact on businesses – has been staggering. Average daily cases since November have increased by more than 1,000%. The increase in deaths, too, continues to rise, representing real lives and real loved ones.
The positivity rate, the percentage of people who test positive for the virus, is now 18%, meaning that about one in five people tested for the virus is positive. During much of the pandemic, positivity rates hovered around 3%.
Hospitalizations, meanwhile, stabilized somewhat at just under 8,000 patients across the county – including nearly 1,700 in intensive care units. But the number has leveled off at an extraordinary level, officials say hospitals cannot take any longer. Still around 750 new admissions of COVID patients occur each day, up from around 250 a day in July.
Officials also warned that current conditions could be a lull between the end of a Thanksgiving wave and what could potentially be another surge in patient numbers based on New Years gatherings and the Christmas holidays that are not not yet arrived.
“We hope the decline continues, but we have yet to see the results of the transmission that occurred during the Christmas and New Year holidays,” said director of health services Dr Christina. Ghaly. “It would be absolutely devastating. Even if the slight decline continues, we are far from being clear. “
Wednesday’s county update did not include the latest figures from Long Beach and Pasadena. Long Beach reported 15 additional deaths, bringing the death toll to 499, and 546 new cases brought the city’s total to 41,625. Pasadena reported 186 new cases, bringing its total to 8,821; two more deaths brought the city’s death toll to 186.
Meanwhile, Ferrer said on Wednesday that the UK variant of COVID-19 posed a significant risk in LA County, possibly becoming the dominant strain by March if left unchecked. While it doesn’t make patients any sicker, the variant is more easily transmitted, Ferrer said.
“Because the UK variant can spread faster, if left unchecked this variant could dominate locally by March,” Ferrer said. “While our current transmission protection rules are effective, they only work when used correctly.”
When asked if a stricter public health order may be in the works, Ferrer said officials “are considering all options at this point.”
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