More coronavirus vaccination appointments available this week – Daily News

Los Angeles County officials said on Sunday, January 24, that consultations are available this week at the five major county coronavirus vaccination centers in Magic Mountain, Pomona Fairplex, Cal State Northridge, the Forum in Inglewood and the County Office of Education in Downey.

Appointments can be booked at www.publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/vaccine/index.htm. Residents who receive the first dose of the vaccine at a large-capacity vaccination site administered by the county will receive the date and place to receive the second dose and will be automatically registered for the second dose consultation, according to the Department of Public Health of LA County. They will also receive email reminders.

Currently, only LA County health workers and residents age 65 and older are eligible for vaccines.

Meanwhile, county health officials reported 8,243 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, for a total of 1,073,111 infections confirmed since the pandemic began. Officials also recorded 98 new fatalities, increasing the county’s death toll, which surpassed the dismal 15,000 mark on Saturday, to 15,260 deaths.

The authorities warned that the lower numbers were probably due to the reduction in record keeping over the weekend.

The county’s daily report did not include the most recent data from Long Beach and Pasadena, cities that operate their own health departments. Pasadena reported two other fatalities, bringing his death toll to 226; another 45 new cases increased the city’s total to 9,776. Long Beach did not update its numbers on Sunday. As of Thursday, the city had reported 577 deaths and 45,483 confirmed cases.

According to the state health department panel, the number of hospitalizations continued to drop on Sunday, with 6,697 people being treated in hospitals and about 1 in 4 in intensive care units. That dropped from 6,697 on Saturday and 6,881 on Friday, the first time daily hospitalizations have dropped to less than 7,000 patients since December 29.

The authorities warned, however: while the number of hospitalized patients is decreasing, staff at local hospitals continued to be pushed to the limit, with the number of people infected with the virus often deadly still at alarming levels. The authorities once again urged residents to comply with “More safety at home” orders, including using facial coverage in public, limiting travel to only those trips that are really necessary and social distance.

Authorities are asking for patience among residents eager to get the COVID-19 vaccination, with extremely scarce supplies and the online system overloaded with reservations, leaving many people frustrated while trying to book appointments.

“We are also seeing a decline in hospitalizations and several other indicators that we have tracked, including test positive rate, percentage of emergency department visits associated with COVID-19, and percentage of COVID-positive respiratory samples at sentinel laboratory surveillance sites,” said Dr. Paul Simon, the Department’s science director.

“However, despite these promising trends, I want to emphasize that the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths remains very high,” he said. “So while there are reasons to hope, we should all remain vigilant and disciplined, wearing masks, physically distancing ourselves away from home, avoiding meetings and washing our hands often.”

Simon said the main sites in the area – each capable of delivering 4,000 doses a day – will be operating at much lower capacity this week, probably in the range of 2,000 to 2,500.

The municipality expects to receive about 143,900 more doses of the vaccine this week. However, as people need to receive two doses of the drug, three to four weeks apart, most of the vaccine that will arrive this 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 new doses 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. 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.

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.”

He said the state is updating its vaccine appointment website, to which the county system is linked, so it should operate more smoothly this week.

The county also has a call reservation system, which is available from 8:00 am to 8:30 pm by calling 833-540-0473. But that line should only be used by people who cannot use the site, since the volume of calls is already exceedingly high, said Simon.

Also on Sunday, authorities announced the planned opening of a pop-up site for COVID-19 tests at Veteran’s Memorial Park, 6364 Zindell Ave. in Commerce. The website will open on Tuesday.

The exams are free and no proof of medical insurance is required. All on-site testing will be performed from 10 am to 4 pm from January 26 to 30.