At the current rate, it will probably take “until 2022” to vaccinate enough people to stop the virus, says the health official

There was good and bad news on the LA Covid-19 front on Friday. On the one hand, key numbers have fallen virtually across the board. On the other hand, with the virus variants worrying the authorities and the spread of the vaccine in the region, there was a concern for another increase.

“Cases have peaked at about 15,000 a day and now appear to be on the decline,” said Los Angeles County Science Director Dr. Paul Simon.

Longer term

The daily number of Covid-19 deaths reported by the county remained high, with 256 deaths announced on Friday. It was the third consecutive day that the number exceeded 200, with 262 deaths recorded on Wednesday and Thursday.

The county also reported another 9,277 cases, but health officials noted on Thursday that the average daily number of new cases fell by 30% last week.

The latest figures provided by the state showed 7,073 people hospitalized in the county, including 1,687 in intensive care. This is a significant drop from the more than 8,000 patients reported in early January and gave hope that the number of hospitalizations for viruses would drop to less than 7,000 for the first time this year.

“Despite these promising trends,” said Simon, “I want to emphasize that the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths remains very high. So while there are reasons to hope, we must all remain vigilant and continue to be disciplined. “

The story continues

Simon also noted that despite the 7,730 vaccine triumph on Thursday at Dodger Stadium earlier this week, the county was struggling to administer the vaccines. He blamed the lack of available doses and the continued uncertainty about future allocations. He noted that the large-scale vaccination sites in the county that opened this week – each capable of delivering 4,000 vaccines a day – will be operating at much less capacity in the next week, probably just 2,000 to 2,500 vaccinations a day. Because?

The county expects to receive about 143,900 more doses of the vaccine next week. However, as people need to receive two doses of the drug, three to four weeks apart, most of the vaccine that will arrive next week will be used to give second doses to people who have already received their first injection. Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer previously estimated that only 37,900 of the doses that will come next week will be available for people to receive their first dose.

Simon said on Friday that the latest figures show that 441,140 doses of the vaccine have already been administered in the county, although he said that number is probably much higher due to delays in counting vaccination totals. As of this week, the county had received about 853,000 doses in total.

Simon said people should not look at these numbers and assume that there are 400,000 unused doses in the county, noting again the delay in vaccination reports and daily dose administration. He also noted the need for much of the medication to be used as a second dose for people who have already
received the first shot.

If the county’s weekly distribution does not improve dramatically beyond the current average of around 150,000, “the vaccination effort is likely to extend until 2022,” said Simon.

“We are hopeful that vaccine production and remittances to California will increase,” he said. “We have a new federal government that is committed to making this happen. We are also hopeful that several other vaccine manufacturers will receive federal authorization for the emergency use of their vaccines in the coming months, and that should help increase supplies to California and, ultimately, to Los Angeles County. “

He said that if the county managed to increase its allocation to 500,000 a week, “we would have the potential to reach 75% of the county’s adult population, or 6 million adults, by mid-summer.”

In the meantime, he asked for patience, saying: “We understand how important it is to distribute the vaccine as soon as possible.”

Even with the drop in the number of Covid cases and hospitalizations, the imperative for rapid vaccine implementation has been underlined by growing reports of new virus variants – some in California – that can be more infectious and potentially less susceptible to current vaccines. .

The City News Service contributed to this report.

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