Doses of COVID-19 vaccine delayed by the storm out east have been shipped to Los Angeles, and all city-run mass vaccination sites resumed operations on Tuesday after being closed through the weekend.
LA city sites reopened at Dodger Stadium, Hansen Dam, San Fernando Park, Lincoln Park, Pierce College and Crenshaw Christian Center. All of the sites were closed over the weekend and Monday. Drivers were lined up around 6 a.m. Tuesday at the Dodger Stadium site.
Mayor Eric Garcetti said that 92,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine were scheduled to arrive in to LA, and the city has started scheduling appointments for the week. Anyone who received a first dose of the vaccine at a city-run site from Jan. 24-30 will be auto-booked for a second dose appointment this week.
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Impacted residents were expected to receive their updated appointment details by end of day Monday, Garcetti said.
Residents seeking more information were directed to call 213-634-3059.
The vast majority of shots are prioritized for second doses, and roughly 3,750 first doses are allocated for distribution at Pierce College, the mayor said. If the city receives additional doses this week, more first-dose appointments will become available at coronavirus.lacity.org/vaxappointment.
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County-run sites were unaffected by the weather-related shortage, as were mobile pop-up sites.
To date, mobile teams have administered more than 4,600 doses across sites in South and East L.A., and each clinic has the capacity to vaccinate 200 people per day. This week, mobile operations will expand operations to include two additional mobile teams, and officials expect to administer up to 4,000 first doses across sites in Vermont Square, Pico-Union, Chinatown, Van Nuys and Boyle Heights.
Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the mobile vaccine sites in Inglewood and Boyle Heights on Sunday to highlight the state's efforts to vaccinate hard-to-reach communities against the coronavirus. He said that more than 7.3 million doses of vaccine have been administered statewide, while acknowledging that many communities have struggled to keep up with the need for inoculations.
Newsom said federal and state officials are doing all they can to vaccinate as many people as possible.
"At the end of the day, there just aren't enough Pfizer vaccines, there aren't enough Moderna vaccines,'' Newsom said.
He said the federal government was giving the state a three-week window of how many doses to expect, information that will be shared with local officials starting this week.
His visit came as the county continues to grapple with equity issues in the distribution of vaccines among the area's Black and Latino population, and as the Southland deals with a shortage of COVID-19 vaccine driven by the destructive winter storm in other parts of the country.
Vaccination rates among eligible Black residents lag far behind other ethnic groups, according to data released Friday by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Black residents represented just 5.2% of all people who had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine as of mid-February, while 33.5% were white, 23.1% Latino/a and 19.1% Asian.
Only 24% of Black residents aged 65 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine, compared to 42.8% of white residents 65 and up.
On Monday, Newsom was expected to visit Long Beach to highlight the city's leadership in administering vaccinations to its residents and to provide an update on the state's efforts to ramp up vaccinations.
Meanwhile, California's new system of tracking and scheduling vaccines is being rolled out in 10 counties. The new system, run by Blue Shield, will be used first in Riverside, Kings, Imperial, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin and Stanislaus, Fresno and Kern counties.
Los Angeles County will be in the next group of counties to get the system, starting March 3, state officials said.
When Could I Get the Vaccine?
Answer the questions to calculate your risk profile and see where you fall in your county's and state's vaccine lineup. This estimate is based on a combination of vaccine rollout recommendations from the CDC and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
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Source: the Vaccine Allocation Planner for COVID-19 by Ariadne Labs and the Surgo Foundation
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