After seeing the record for deaths and hospitalizations for COVID-19, Los Angeles County will use the technology to help residents track and prove their vaccination records, Bloomberg reports. The public health department has teamed up with startup Healthvana in an app that will store vaccination records in Google or Apple wallets. It will remind residents to have a second injection, while providing them with a vaccination record “to prove to airlines, to schools, to prove to those in need,” said Healthvana CEO Ramin Bastani Bloomberg.
Pfizer has allocated 82,875 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in the region and almost half has been distributed to emergency workers, health care providers and residents of long-term care facilities. However, LA County is one of the largest in the United States, with more than 10 million residents, so once vaccinations increase next year, maintaining control will become a challenge. In addition, deaths in the county are approaching 10,000, so hospitals and clinics are already overburdened – and it is expected to get much worse in January 2021.