Admission to vaccines is expected to extend from next week, but the availability of appointments will depend on how many doses the province expects to receive – and provincial officials will not know the figure for another day.
There will be nearly 400 locations in LA County administering the vaccines. The new people eligible will include food and agricultural workers, teachers and other education and child care workers, emergency service workers and first responders.
The expansion comes even because more good news is on the horizon, with Johnson & Johnson saying the new vaccine will be available within days.
The FDA says the Johnson & Johnson vaccine meets the requirements for authorization for emergency use and this could happen as early as Friday. The company says it would have 20 million doses available by March and 100 million by the end of June.
The vaccine was 85% effective in preventing serious diseases, and the data show that it works against all variants, even the highly contagious South African variant, although it is less effective.
It requires only one dose and does not need to be extremely refrigerated, like the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
The director of public health in Los Angeles County, dr. Barbara Ferrer, said it could give a good boost to the vaccination of the country.
“A lot of people are going to be very happy when we start getting Johnson & Johnson,” Ferrer said. “Just one dose. That means you come in once for your vaccination and then you’re done.”
The province’s website is not yet accepting appointments for the extended group next week, until the province finds out how many doses it expects to receive.
Once it starts, it is expected that about 25-29% of the available appointments will be allocated to teachers and other school staff. The province is developing a priority-based system for school districts based on the level of poverty and cases of coronavirus in the district community.
Latest LA County numbers
Even as vaccination efforts expand, Los Angeles County is reporting more new cases and deaths than before the holidays.
The province reported 136 new deaths and 2,157 new cases on Wednesday. The province has now seen a total of 20,987 deaths due to COVID-19.
The total mortality rate was recently adjusted upwards with 806 deaths after provincial officials discovered a number of coronavirus-related deaths that were not reported by the normal paperwork process but were found in an examination of death certificates. These 806 deaths occurred during the holiday boom from December 3 to February 3.
Since the pandemic began, the province has reported 1,185,457 cases of COVID-19.
Ferrer said the province has had an average of 72 deaths a day since last week due to COVID-19. By comparison, in early November, the average was about 14 deaths per day.
“As we got to the other side of the terrible boom, it’s important to remember that we did it with tremendous sadness, illness and death,” Ferrer said.
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