There is, officially speaking, no such thing as a ready-made line for COVID-19 vaccinations in Los Angeles County.
But some clinics have doses that remain at the end of the day or during a quiet silence soon expire, and the spread is rapidly spreading across this possible backdoor to access vaccines. Some who flock to the sites spend hours waiting in hopes of getting a happy break.
The Kedren Community Health Center in South Los Angeles and the Balboa Sports Complex in Encino have been in the middle of the rumor mill for the past few days, attracting large crowds that begin to gather before dawn. Some people come from neighborhoods far from the vaccination sites.
The crowd included seniors who, although eligible to receive the shots, could not secure appointments. But many of the others camped in the queue do not qualify for doses under the state’s phased distribution system.
Some have expressed ethical concerns about the possibility of being vaccinated in front of members of higher priority groups. They did not want to take a dose from anyone else, but they heard that the vaccine would be discarded otherwise.
“I think there are people who are so much more deserving than us, and we found out by chance,” Brianna Bane, 23, who works in social media, said Thursday afternoon. She was called up from the standby line at Kedren Health and in the vaccination tent a few minutes later.
Los Angeles County Department of Public Health officials said in a statement Friday that while they do not have assistance lines, some people receive doses that would otherwise be wasted.
The department said it was not advising residents to show up at vaccination sites in hopes of receiving a residual vaccine at the end of the day. ‘
Provincial health officials estimate that the number of people vaccinated daily through assistance is less than 20 or 30.
But dr. Jerry P. Abraham, who runs the vaccine at Kedren Health, said 40 of the more than 800 doses of vaccine administered at the site on Thursday went to non-health workers younger than 65. The non-profit health care system serves as a vaccine site for distribution to the country.
Sonny Tran, the site’s clinical activity, said 20% to 30% of people with appointments did not show up. According to the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Moderna vaccine is administered six hours after a vial has been pierced. Abraham said Kedren Health did not show up more than usual on Thursday because appointments with the new CalVax software were scheduled.
Nationwide, the turnout was less than 10%; this figure is taken into account when scheduling appointments, health officials said.
The COVID-19 vaccine supply is extremely limited in the country, and only a small number of appointments are available for frontline health workers and residents 65 years or older. Many frustrated seniors competed for the few slots available.
Abraham said health workers and the elderly remain the priority for vaccinations in his clinic.
“But there are times when no one is here,” he said. ‘And sometimes your stock has to throw someone’s arm or throw it away, and we refuse to waste a dose.
“We are not going to allow documentation or technology to vaccinate us,” Abraham said, adding that those at the clinic “are doing everything in our power to ensure that our phases and levels are respected and prioritized.”
The clinic is located in a part of South LA that is more than 97% Latino and Black, with an average income of $ 39,612. But many people who waited long hours outside the clinic on Thursday and Friday were white and came from outside the surrounding area.
Early Friday morning, a woman in an Audi with a “Brentwood School” license plate stopped to honk at people she knew when she drove to a parking lot. Some people set up camp chairs, type on laptops, and read newspapers and iPads while they wait. A security guard occasionally walked down the block on Friday morning and hurled health workers and those over 65 from the general readiness line to the front.
The majority of the ‘fighters’, as one woman jokingly called her group, said they live on the Westside or in the Valley, although others come from the city center, Los Feliz and Echo Park, and a few from Topanga and Malibu. They all heard from word of mouth in their social and professional networks.
“The moral question of getting it in front of someone else weighs heavier when doses are wasted,” Jasmine, a 28-year-old designer from Echo Park, who asked that her surname not be used, said Friday morning.
As she spoke, the young man waiting just in front of her dug a plastic fork into a breakfast frittata. His meal had arrived a few minutes earlier with a delivery manager.
Several people have noticed how strongly the demographics of the line differ from those of the area and have expressed discomfort about it.
“I feel a little weird. “I wish it was something more members of the community knew about,” Caitlin, a 57-year-old Valley actress, said Friday when she noticed the “series of expensive cars in the parking lot.” Caitlin, who asked that her surname not be used, has been waiting with her son from the university since 04:45
On Friday at the Balboa sports complex in Encino, a series of elderly and health workers snuck around in a building of red bricks where vaccines fired shots at people with appointments. But just further – along the park’s tennis courts and baseball fields – a separate line formed: hopefuls against vaccine.
Young people, families and even the elderly are standing on grass chairs and blankets waiting to see if there are extra shots available at the end of the day. Rumors abounded, including one regularly repeated anecdote about 200 people who had one lucky last afternoon with leftover shots.
“It’s kind of a phone game,” says William Crouse, 32, who is working on a puzzle with his friend Teddy Jones, 38, while they wait.
Behind them, a paper board pasted on a message said the unofficial ‘non-appointment line’ would give the highest priority to health workers and those over 65 before going to others. Crouse and Jones said they first heard about the possible distribution of remaining doses through an Instagram message.
The current pace of development of the vaccine in LA County means it could take more than six months for the Crouse age group to be eligible, he said he would try his luck at Balboa.
“If the goal is to get as many people vaccinated as possible, why not?” he said. “I like to play a role in the goal.”
Not everyone was so young, or so hopeful.
Josefa Celada, 71, joined the Balboa Sports Complex helpline on Friday at 9 a.m. after trying to secure an online appointment for the elderly. The next opening she could find was in March, she said, but she urgently needed the vaccine for work. As a babysitter for three children, her boss told her not to return to work until she was vaccinated.
“I need it,” she said. ‘I do not go outside; I’m doing nothing. I’m so scared. “
Officials who worked at the Balboa sports complex said seniors and health workers would be taken out of the standby group first at the end of the day, but no one could give guarantees.
Selda Hollander, 86, joined Balboa’s standby line after she had no success through the telephone appointment system.
However, she was not prepared for the long wait and did not bring a chair. Instead, she sits in the grass and supports herself against the cold.
“I can not tell if it is worth it,” she trembled and said. “I’m waiting for the vaccine, but I could get sick from the weather.”
Meanwhile, Natasha Moini and Siena Deck, both 23, got ready. Parked on folding chairs, with sweaters on and towels covering their legs, they had snacks and watched an episode of ‘How to get away with Murder’ on an Apple laptop.
Moini’s mother was the one who heard from a friend of the Balboa helpline. She was able to get a shot last week.
“You never really know, so we realized, why not?” Moini said. “I mean, what else are we doing?”
Both Moini and Deck, who meet at 10:30 a.m. Arrived, said they would come back a few more times if they could not vaccinate on Friday.
“I’ll just feel better if I get it,” Moini said.