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There is no official queue for COVID-19 vaccinations in Los Angeles County.
But some clinics have doses soon to expire at the end of the day or during a lull in the early afternoon, and word quickly spread about this potential backdoor to access to vaccines. Some who flock to the sites spend hours waiting hoping to get a lucky break.
The Kedren Community Health Center in South Los Angeles and the Balboa Sports Complex in Encino have been at the center of the rumor in recent days, drawing large crowds who start to gather before dawn. Some people arrive from neighborhoods far from vaccination sites.
These crowds included older people who, although eligible to receive the vaccines, had failed to secure appointments. But many of the other camped in line are not eligible for doses under the state’s phased distribution system.
Some have expressed ethical qualms about getting vaccinated before members of priority groups. They didn’t want to take someone else’s dose, they said, but they had heard that the vaccine would otherwise be thrown away.
“I think there are people who deserve so much more than us, and we just found out,” Brianna Bane, 23, who works in social media, said Thursday afternoon. She was called out of the queue at Kedren Health and into the vaccination tent a few minutes later.
Officials with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a statement Friday that even though they don’t have queues, some people are getting doses that would otherwise be wasted.
The department said it “does not advise residents to come to vaccination sites in the hope of receiving any remaining vaccine at the end of the day.”
County health officials have estimated the number of people vaccinated daily through the relief lines to be less than 20 or 30.
But Dr Jerry P. Abraham, who heads immunization operations at Kedren Health, said 40 of the more than 800 doses of the vaccine given at the site on Thursday were intended for non-health professionals under the age of 65. . The nonprofit health care system serves as the county’s vaccine distribution site.
Sonny Tran, the site’s clinical operations manager, said 20-30% of people with appointments did not show up. The clinic administers the Moderna vaccine, which expires six hours after a vial is punctured, as directed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Abraham said Kedren Health experienced more no-shows than usual on Thursday because the appointments were scheduled through the new CalVax software.
Countywide the no-show rate was less than 10%; this figure is taken into account during appointments, health officials said.
The supply of COVID-19 vaccines is extremely limited in the county and only a small number of appointments are available for frontline healthcare workers and residents aged 65 or older. Many frustrated seniors compete for the few available slots.
Abraham said healthcare workers and the elderly remain the priority for vaccinations at his clinic.
“But there are times when we don’t have anyone here,” he said. “And there are times when your inventory has to either be hugged or thrown away, and we refuse to waste a dose.
“We’re not going to let the documentation or the technology stop us from vaccinating,” Abraham said, adding that those at the clinic are doing “everything in our power to make sure our phases and levels are being met and hierarchical.
The clinic is located in a part of South Los Angeles that is over 97% Latino and Black, with a median income of $ 39,612. But many of the people who waited long hours Thursday and Friday outside the clinic were white and came from beyond the surrounding neighborhood.
Early Friday morning, a woman in an Audi with a “Brentwood School” license plate holder stopped to honk at people she knew as she turned for a parking spot. Some people set up camping chairs, tap on laptops, and read newspapers and iPads while they wait. A security guard occasionally marched through the neighborhood on Friday morning, pushing healthcare workers and people over 65 out of the general line to the front lines.
The majority of “vaccine hunters,” as one woman jokingly called her group, said they lived on the west side or in the valley, although others came from downtown, Los Feliz and the surrounding area. ‘Echo Park, and a few from Topanga and Malibu. They had all heard of the opportunity through word of mouth in their social and professional networks.
“The moral question of getting it before someone else has been offset by the fact that there are wasted doses,” Jasmine, a 28-year-old designer from Echo Park, said Friday morning, who asked. that his last name is not used.
As she spoke, the young man waiting right in front of her shoved a plastic fork into what appeared to be a takeout breakfast frittata. His meal had arrived a few minutes earlier via the delivery man.
Several people noticed how the demographics of the line differed from those of the neighborhood and expressed their embarrassment about it.
“I feel a little weird. … I wish it was something more in this community would know about, “Caitlin, a 57-year-old actress from the valley, said on Friday, noting” the array of expensive cars in the parking lot. ” Caitlin, who requested that her last name not be used, had been waiting with her college-aged son since 4:45 a.m.
At the Balboa Sports Complex in Encino on Friday, a line of seniors and healthcare workers meandered around a red brick building where vaccinators administered injections to people with appointments. But just beyond – next to the park’s tennis courts and baseball fields – a distinct line had formed: vaccination hopes.
Young people, families and even the elderly were parked in lawn chairs and blankets, waiting to see if there would be any additional photos available for them at the end of the day. Rumors abounded, including an oft-repeated anecdote about 200 people who were fortunate enough to take the remaining photos one afternoon last week.
“It’s kind of like a phone game,” said William Crouse, 32, who worked on a puzzle with his friend Teddy Jones, 38, as they waited.
Behind them, a paper sign pasted to a message said the “unofficial line” would give top priority to healthcare workers and people over 65 before moving on to others. Crouse and Jones said they first heard about the possible distribution of the remaining doses via an Instagram post.
The current pace of the vaccine rollout in LA County means it could be well over six months before eligibility opens to Crouse’s age group, he said, so he thought he would try his luck at Balboa.
“If the goal is to get as many people vaccinated as possible, why not?” he said. “I am happy to play a role in this goal.”
Not everyone was so young or so hopeful.
Josefa Celada, 71, joined the queue at Balboa Sports Complex at 9 a.m. on Friday after trying and failing to get an online appointment for seniors. The next opening she could find was in March, she said, but she urgently needs the vaccine to work. A nanny of three children, her boss told her not to return to work until she was vaccinated.
“I need it,” she said. “I do not go out; I’m not doing anything. I’m so afraid.”
Officials working on lines at the Balboa sports complex said the elderly and healthcare workers would be taken out of the relief group first at the end of the day, but no one could give guarantees.
Selda Hollander, 86, joined Balboa’s waiting line after failing to reach anyone through the phone appointment system.
She was not prepared for the long wait, however, and did not bring a chair. Instead, she was sitting in the grass, bracing herself for the cold.
“I don’t know if it’s worth it,” she said, shivering slightly. “I am waiting for the vaccine, but I can get sick because of the weather.”
Meanwhile Natasha Moini and Siena Deck, both 23, are ready. Parked in folding chairs, with sweaters and towels covering their legs, they grabbed some snacks and watched an episode of “How To Get Away With Murder” on an Apple laptop.
Moini’s mom is the one who heard about Balboa’s queue from a friend. She managed to get a shot last week.
“You never really know, so we thought, why don’t we come? Moini said. “I mean, what else are we doing?”
Moini and Deck, who arrived at 10:30 am, said they would come back several times if they couldn’t get their shots on Friday.
“I’ll feel better if I get it,” Moini said.
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