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Los Angeles County surpassed one million coronavirus cases on Saturday since it was notified of its first infection almost a year ago and also recorded its first instance of a new, more contagious variant of the virus initially identified in the UK.
The variant, B.1.1.7, had previously been found in San Diego and San Bernardino counties in California, as well as 14 other U.S. states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is not believed to make people sicker or increase their risk of death, but appears to spread more easily, raising concerns that it could hamper efforts to bring the pandemic under control if it displaces other strains and becomes dominant In the region.
Officials believe the variant has been around LA County for some time and is already spreading in the community. The person who contracted it is a man who recently spent time in LA County, but has since traveled to Oregon, where he is currently in isolation, officials said. Quest Labs in Washington confirmed the discovery, officials said.
Health experts have been concerned for some time that the new strain will pose even more challenges to an area that has become an epicenter of COVID-19 in America, pushing hospitals to the brink and infecting around 1 in 3 residents of the county. since the start of the pandemic.
Officials hope rapid vaccination will be a weapon against the new strain, which a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released on Friday said it would show “rapid growth in early 2021, becoming the predominant variant in March.”
“The presence of the UK variant in Los Angeles County is troubling as our healthcare system is already under severe strain with over 7,500 people currently in hospital,” said Barbara Ferrer, county public health director. , in a press release.
The new milestone comes as COVID-19 cases have started to flatten both in the county and in other parts of California, although conditions in hospitals remain critical. LA County recorded 13,291 new cases of the virus and 237 related deaths on Saturday, according to the Times tally, bringing its total to 1,003,923 cases and 13,741 deaths.
“Our community is taking the brunt of the winter push, facing a large number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, five times what we have experienced over the summer,” Ferrer said. “This more contagious variant facilitates the spread of infections in the workplace, in stores and in our homes.”
The discovery added even more urgency to officials’ race to vaccinate as many people as possible before the variant took hold. The process has been complicated by California’s decentralized public health system in which local public health departments, already responsible for the immense work associated with testing and contact tracing, are also responsible for prioritization and prioritization. vaccine distribution.
Vaccine shortages have also been reported at the federal level.
Although Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that the state is expanding vaccine eligibility to include all people 65 and over, LA County is still working by vaccinating all of its eligible healthcare workers – those who have had exposure. direct or indirect to patients or infectious material. (Healthcare workers who do not have regular contact with patients in person will be vaccinated in a later phase, officials said.)
The county’s public health department on Saturday issued a broad appeal for licensed healthcare workers – including physicians, osteopathic doctors, medical assistants, nurse practitioners, registered professional nurses, dentists and pharmacists – to volunteer to vaccinate other healthcare workers during unpaid, working hours at five “mega” distribution sites.
The sites are slated to open Tuesday at the Pomona Fairplex, the Forum in Inglewood, Northridge, the LA County Education Office in Downey and Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, with appointments available each day. until Feb. 14, the county said. .
In addition, the vaccination site at Dodger Stadium in the city of Los Angeles began administering doses on Friday.
LA County health workers had received more than 279,000 doses of the vaccine as of Thursday, including more than 219,000 first doses and more than 60,000 second doses, officials said, but estimated that around 450,000 health workers still needed be vaccinated.
County public health officials said they expected all eligible health workers to receive their first dose within the next two weeks and be able to move on to the next phase of vaccination in early February. Those eligible for the next phase include people 65 years of age and over, as well as those working in education, childcare, emergency services or food and agriculture and are exposed to a risk of exposure.
Long Beach, which has its own public health department, moved into that next phase on Friday, with Mayor Robert Garcia and other critical city employees receiving the vaccine. Other newly eligible include police officers and those 65 and over.
It came after the city vaccinated around 15,000 healthcare workers and residents of long-term care facilities, Garcia said in a press release.
Next week, Long Beach will open clinics to immunize grocery store workers and has scheduled clinics to immunize educators the following week, the statement said.
Other counties, including Riverside and Orange, have also started immunizing those 65 and over and essential workers in certain sectors.
But according to some reports, appointments have been difficult to secure.
Around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Riverside County opened 5,600 appointments for immunization clinics that take place Thursday through Sunday at Corona High School, Heritage High School in Menifee, San Gorgonio College in Beaumont, Indio Fairgrounds and Diamond Stadium in Lake Elsinore. The Diamond Stadium Clinic was for people 65 and over.
All appointments were made at 7 p.m., spokeswoman Brooke Federico said.
The county made 11,000 more appointments available until Jan.22 on Friday, and places filled in about two hours, she said.
On top of that, the county said it had only received enough vaccines from the state to cover clinics operating throughout the weekend.
“Right now we have 14,346 doses in our hands for public health and that’s just enough to go through the immunization clinics we have scheduled for Sunday,” Kim Saruwatari, director of public health said on Friday. county, in a live meeting with the county. officials. “And by the end of Sunday, we should be almost out of vaccines as a public health department.”
An additional 100,479 doses were administered or sent to health care providers to be administered over the next few days, she said. In contrast, the county estimates that more than 700,000 residents are currently eligible to receive the vaccine.
Saruwatari said the county typically receives weekly shipments from the state of around 35,000 to 40,000 doses, but the attribution is neither accurate nor consistent.
“And so that’s one of the challenges that makes planning very difficult,” she said. “We don’t know when the vaccine will arrive for sure and we don’t know how much we will receive at any given time with any level of certainty.”
Orange County this week opened a large-scale vaccine distribution center at Disneyland and announced plans to open four more. But the number of people trying to get a date quickly overwhelmed the system, county supervisor Andrew Do said this week. He encouraged people to keep trying.
The vaccination site, along with two smaller ones earlier in the week, was overwhelmed with people who showed up without an appointment, leading them to “effectively shut down” for a while on Tuesday, it said. the count.
The new appointment scheduling platform, Othena.com, was regularly updated to resolve technical issues, said Jessica Good, public information manager for the county health department.
More than 256,000 people had registered on the site on Saturday – an average of 12,000 registrations per hour – and more than 30,000 of them had been vaccinated, she said. Good added that more appointments will become available as the county receives more vaccines.
Orange County has about 450,000 residents aged 65 and over, as well as 250,000 critical health workers and first responders, but has only received 170,000 doses so far, Good said. Of those, 80% went to hospitals and large healthcare providers, she said.
As a reminder that a single shot of the vaccine does not confer full immunity, U.S. Representative Lou Correa, who represents the 46th Congressional District covering parts of Orange County, announced on Saturday that he had tested positive for the virus. the day before – even though he received his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 19.
“I now join more than 200,000 residents of Orange County who have been diagnosed with the virus,” Correa said in a statement on Saturday.
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