Goeiemore, LA
Like Los Angeles. and many other California cities are struggling to spread the coronavirus vaccine, Long Beach – a city of nearly 500,000 – is moving fast.
In late January, Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said city health workers were doing the same. almost all vaccinated. Now, the next level of vaccinations is well on track. Did Garcia tell my colleague Sharon McNary that 6,500 education and child care workers and 2,500 food workers received at least one dose. The city’s police, firefighters, 911 dispatchers, emergency workers and residents over the age of 65 are also eligible.
In LA City and province, by comparison, vaccines are currently only available to healthcare professionals and people aged 65 and over.
Garcia attributes his city’s success so far to the fact that Long Beach has its own health department, which saves the bureaucratic roadblocks from doing so. In addition, he said city officials took a calculated risk early on.
“We have made some decisions not to hold the stock, but to stop as soon as possible,” he said. “It helped us keep going fast.”
Across the country, states that have achieved the most successful gunshots have tailored distribution plans to their needs of their population. Alaska the second highest percentage vaccinated of its population (to West Virginia), and medical teams pass through snow-capped mountainous areas to deliver doses “on snow machines, on four-wheelers, in trucks, in airplanes, which stand on tarred roads in -20 wind chill. .. actually everywhere, ”Dr. Ellen Hodges, Chief of Staff of the Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation, told the Pew Charitable Trusts.
In West Virginia supported heavily at independent pharmacies and clinics in the community, where staff regularly know residents and trust is high.
Meanwhile, California officials are launching a website they hope it will streamline the vaccination process and continue to work age-based fitness to help vaccinate more people. Meantime, lawmakers can very well look to Long Beach for guidance – because for Garcia, it’s personal. The 727 deaths in the city are also his mother and stepfather.
“Because I also lost both my parents,” he said, “I definitely feel that every vaccine we get is a potential life-saving opportunity.”
Read on for more information on what’s happening in LA today, and stay safe out there.
What else do you need to know today
Before you go … Meet LA’s pop art nun
Silkscreen artist Corita Kent was known in the art world as the Pop Art Nun. A member of the Order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Los Feliz between 1936 and 1968, and her work was a rebellious view of religious art. In 1966, she was named LA Times Woman of the Year.
When Nellie Scott, director of the Corita Art Center, found out that the small studio in East Hollywood where Kent did some of her most important work was going to be compared to a parking lot, she was crushed.
“It was really just a gut punch,” she said. “A record just won’t get it right.”
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