Goeiemore, LA It’s February 26th.
From next month new levels of LA County residents are eligible for the coronavirus vaccine.
On March 1 teachers, school staff, child care workers and more emergency services workers can report their first doses. And so on March 15 appointments will open for anyone aged 16-64 with a qualifying underlying health condition, including cancer, Down syndrome and pregnancy.
Along with the progress comes the need to increase the number of vaccinations received here, but since the beginning of the explosion, the spread in LA has become more and more widespread.
First, it was not entirely clear why it was so difficult to be eligible for first dose appointments. But if my colleagues Emily Guerin and Jackie Fortiér explain mid-January, provincial health officials have earmarked a certain number of vaccines second doses – and they received so few of the feeds that only a small amount was available for beginners.
The problem persisted earlier this month, when provincial vaccination sites temporarily used to offer only second doses. City sites followed later.
Earlier this week, Government Gavin Newsom reports that supply will be in California gradually increasing, with about 100,000 doses per week. New supersites also start, all as part of President Biden’s ambitious goal to vaccinate 100 million people within 100 days.
City and county officials in LA are preparing to extend the hours of mobile vaccination clinics and even offer ‘midnight clinics’ in which doses that would otherwise go to waste are administered. (According to a provincial health official, midnight clinics are rare.)
Director of Public Health in LA County, Barbara Ferrer said that as more people qualify, she expects it it will be harder to get vaccinated by March, but she expects things to move faster by April.
It was then that Pfizer and Moderna would increase the production of their vaccines, and a third Johnson & Johnson vaccine will hopefully be approved.
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
Weekend reading
There’s a lot going on in the world right now, and it’s hard enough to keep up with our daily lives, let alone keep up with the news. But if you have time for the weekend, you can miss it:
A new account would require California to contract with more black-owned businesses. (LA Watts Times)
In the 1970s, a LA trans woman almost single-handedly made a revolution in the automotive industry. A new documentary tells her story. (LAist)
Black journalists and editors in LA examine the question of fairness in local newsrooms. (LA Sentinel)
An anti-gentrification group in Little Tokyo is working to keep interlopers at a distance. (LA Taco)
The failures of California’s Department of Employment Development has left many residents in serious financial trouble. (LAist)
A plan to expand the 605 and 5 freeways would bulldoze hundreds of homes in Downey. (StreetsBlog LA)
If successful, President Biden’s immigration plan would create an eight-year path to citizenship. (LAist)
Shops and apartments started going up around the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. (Urban LA)
Long beach became the center of the (long-awaited) bread renaissance in Southern California. (LAist)
Before you leave … This is what you need to do this weekend
They say that March is coming in like a lion, so while you wait until that scary cat arrives, here are some activities to keep you busy.
Go to drive-in for a show of Come to America, just in time for the upcoming sequel, Upcoming 2 America. Read more about the music and life of Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez. Laugh a little laugh – and maybe feel some – at a non-binary, interactive comedy show. Listen to a concert by Joachim Cooder and Amythyst Kiah. Explore Bob Baker’s Los Angeles. Tune in for the opening of Historic Belmar Park in Santa Monica. And more.
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