LA County ready to extend immunization to teachers and frontline workers

LOS ANGELES (KABC) – Los Angeles County is set to extend immunization appointments to teachers and essential workers soon.

Vaccine eligibility is expected to increase from next week, but appointment availability will depend on how many doses the county expects to receive – and county officials won’t know that figure until another day.

There will be nearly 400 sites in LA County to administer the vaccines. New eligible people will include food and agriculture workers, teachers and other education and child care workers, as well as emergency service workers and first responders.

The expansion comes even as more good news looms on the horizon, with Johnson & Johnson saying their new vaccine could be available within days.

The FDA says the Johnson & Johnson vaccine meets emergency use clearance requirements and that could happen as early as Friday. The company says it could have 20 million doses available by March and 100 million by the end of June.

The vaccine was 85% effective in preventing serious illness and data shows it works against all variants, even the highly contagious South African variant, although it was less effective.

It only needs one dose and it doesn’t need extreme refrigeration like the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Los Angeles County Director of Public Health Dr Barbara Ferrer said it could be a big boost for the county’s vaccination efforts.

“A lot of people will be very happy when we start having Johnson & Johnson,” Ferrer said. “Just one dose. That means you come once for your vaccination and then you’re done.”

The county’s website is not yet accepting appointments for the expanded group next week, until the county finds out how many doses it expects to receive.

Once that begins, about 25-29% of the available appointments should go to teachers and other school staff. The county is developing a priority-based system for school districts based on poverty level and rates of coronavirus cases in the district community.

Latest LA County Numbers

Even as vaccination efforts expand, Los Angeles County continues to report more new cases and deaths than it saw before the holiday wave.

The county reported 136 new deaths on Wednesday and 2,157 new cases. The county has now recorded a total of 20,987 deaths from COVID-19.

This total death figure was adjusted upwards to 806 deaths recently after county officials discovered a number of coronavirus-related deaths that were not reported through the normal administrative process, but were found in a verification of death certificates. These 806 deaths occurred during the holiday wave from December 3 to February 3.

Since the start of the pandemic, the county has reported 1,185,457 cases of COVID-19.

Ferrer said last week the county recorded an average of 72 deaths per day from COVID-19. By comparison, in early November, the average was around 14 deaths per day.

“As we came to the other side of the terrible wave, it is important to remember that we did it with immense grief, disease and death,” Ferrer said.