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The change is underway for people who have received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and need the second after 21 days, said Manuel Martinez of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
County officials reported slow but steady progress in coronavirus vaccination efforts on Friday, but said less than 3% of the population had been fully vaccinated and appointments for the first doses would be difficult to meet. get for the moment.
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At the seven large-scale vaccination sites run by the county, a limited number of first doses will be given on Monday, with the rest of the week reserved only for people who need their second dose of the drug, according to Dr. Paul Simon, scientific director of the county health department. To make an appointment, you must also provide documentation.
The county is currently in Phase 1B vaccine eligibility, which includes people aged 65 and over, with the next group consisting of educators, teachers, babysitters, food workers and agriculture and first aid workers.
“So many people want to be vaccinated. This site here could easily accommodate 4000 people vaccinated a day, in fact 4000 cars, and we just don’t have vaccines. Today we were only able to post 1,100 appointments, ”said Barbara Ferrer, LA County Director of Public Health.
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Simon said if only the county’s seven vaccination sites will administer only second doses this week, residents could face problems in other locations as all providers face a shortage of vaccines.
“Unfortunately, the biggest problem we continue to face in our ability to vaccinate is the scarcity of supply and the variability in the amount of vaccine we receive from week to week,” said Simon. “This has been a problem all over the country. And it makes planning difficult.”
According to Simon, the most recent figures indicate that more than 1.05 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in the county to date, including just over 104,000 seconds. That means 2.6% of the county’s population aged 16 and over has been fully vaccinated so far. About 11% of the population aged 16 and over have received at least one dose.
The slow progress of the vaccination program has led some residents to get creative in finding ways to manipulate the appointment system to gain access to vaccines.
Some people who are not yet eligible to be vaccinated have made it a habit to dwell at vaccination sites on the slight possibility that there are doses remaining at the end of the day that need to be administered to avoid to waste them. Ferrer said this week there have been issues with people claiming to be babysitters of disabled children showing up at vaccination sites with a generic Xeroxed letter identifying them as such.
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Simon described another way some people have tried to skip the line to get the shot. According to Simon, people who received emails from the county about scheduling an appointment for a second dose of the vaccine shared the unique web link included in the emails with friends. These people “then make an appointment for the first dose, even if they are not eligible to be vaccinated at the moment”.
“It is important for people to understand that these actions take away access to vaccination for people at high risk who are eligible for the vaccine at this time,” said Simon. “When we identify these appointments, they are canceled. I want the public to know that people who are not eligible and who show up on one of our sites with one of these shared appointments will be refused. . ”
He said he didn’t have numbers on how many people had tried to jump the line this way, but “it was happening enough that we noticed it very clearly.”
Simon said the county was trying to find a way to modify the computer system to prevent such appointments.
Gov. Gavin Newsom discussed the issue of the vaccine shortage during a briefing held Monday at Petco Park in San Diego.
“We are sober and aware of the scarcity of the number of vaccines available in the United States of America. Nonetheless, we are not naive about our responsibility here in the State of California to move these vaccines out of freezers and into guns, ”said the governor.
Newsom said the state is administering nearly 200,000 doses of the vaccine a day, double the number just a few weeks ago. But Newsom said the state still needs more help.
“So we are making progress, we are improving the administration rate day by day, but we cannot do this at the state level without partners at the local level,” he said.
City News Service contributed to this report.
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