Vaccine eligibility is expected to expand from next week, but the availability of consultations will depend on how many doses the county expects to receive – and county officials will not know that number for another day.
There will be approximately 400 locations in LA County administering the vaccines. The new eligible persons will include food and agriculture workers, teachers and other education and childcare workers, and emergency service workers and first responders.
The expansion comes with more good news on the horizon, with Johnson & Johnson saying that their new vaccine may be available in a matter of days.
The FDA says the Johnson & Johnson vaccine meets the requirements for emergency use authorization and can happen as early as Friday. The company says it may 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.
You only need one dose and you don’t need extreme refrigeration like the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Los Angeles County Director of Public Health, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, said this could represent a good boost to the county’s vaccination efforts.
“Many people will be very happy when we start to acquire Johnson & Johnson,” said Ferrer. “Just one dose. That means you come for the vaccination once and then you’re ready.”
The county website is not yet accepting appointments for the expanded group next week, until the county knows how many doses it expects to receive.
Once this starts, about 25-29% of the available places should be allocated to teachers and other school staff. The county is developing a priority system for school districts based on the level of poverty and coronavirus case rates in the district community.
Latest LA County numbers
Despite the expansion of vaccination efforts, Los Angeles County continues to report more new cases and deaths than before the holiday increase.
The county reported 136 new deaths on Wednesday and 2,157 new cases. The county has seen a total of 20,987 COVID-19 deaths.
That total death toll has been adjusted upward to 806 deaths recently, after county officials discovered a series of coronavirus-related deaths that were not reported through the normal paperwork process, but were found on a death certificate check. These 806 deaths occurred during the peak of the holiday from December 3 to February 3.
Since the start of the pandemic, the county has reported 1,185,457 cases of COVID-19.
Ferrer said last week the county had an average of 72 deaths a day from COVID-19. In comparison, in early November, the average was about 14 deaths per day.
“Although we have reached the other side of the terrible wave, it is important to remember that we did it with tremendous heartbreak, illness and death,” said Ferrer.
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