Vaccine Eligibility Expands; Church Plans Gathering For 3,000

LOS ANGELES, CA — For the second week in a row, Los Angeles County will use the bulk of its vaccine supply to administer second doses for residents. The county's mass vaccination sites will exclusively administer second doses health officials announced Friday.

That means that for the second week in a row, Los Angeles will make only limited progress in getting more people inoculated even as the health officials plan to open up eligibility to millions of essential workers with weeks. Also on Friday, State health officials said that as of March 15, shots can be administered to people 16 and older suffering from medical conditions or developmental disabilities making them susceptible to severe illness or death from the virus. The new guideline would seem to conflict with the reality of the vaccine shortage in Los Angeles County which remains weeks or possibly months away from being able to vaccinate all eligible healthcare workers and older people as well as the essential workers expected to become eligible later this month.

On Friday, the City of Los Angeles had to close its mass vaccination sites including Dodger Stadium after running out of shots until next week's shipment comes in. As eligibility requirements open up and vaccine shortages continue to plague the community, frustration among officials and residents mounts.

"We share their frustration," said Dr. Paul Simon, chief science officer for the county Department of Public Health. "We're all frustrated. We know that we could do much more if we had more doses. For example, we're now receiving about 200,000 doses each week, and as we've surveyed all of our providers, we're confident that we could administer up to 600,000 doses a week. So we have much, much greater capacity if we can get the available vaccine."

Under state guidelines many more people will soon be eligible for vaccination. Starting March 15, people 16 and older with cancer; chronic kidney disease; chronic pulmonary disease; Down syndrome; weakened immune system from solid organ transplant; pregnancy; sickle cell disease; heart conditions; severe obesity; and Type 2 diabetes mellitus should be eligible for the vaccine, according to the state.

Yet next week, the county is unlikely to get very far through the pool of eligible residents.

"Next week the majority of appointments at our vaccinations sites will continue to be for second doses," said Dr. Paul Simon, chief science officer for the county Department of Public Health. "We will only be providing second doses at our Mega-POD (point of dispensing) sites."

The county-operated mass vaccination sites — the Pomona Fairplex, Magic Mountain, the Forum, the County Office of Education in Downey and Cal State Northridge — will all be administering second doses next week while first doses will be available at other locations, such as health centers, pharmacies "and other providers that serve the areas hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic."

Los Angeles County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis recognized the generally improving downward trends in daily cases, but stressed that while the numbers are getting better, they're still high, and "the risk of running into someone with COVID-19 who may not know it is still very high."

The county reported another 137 COVID deaths on Friday and 3,497 new cases raising the cumulative total from throughout the pandemic to 1,161,926.

The county also reported another 15 cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, raising the overall total to 90, including one death. Health officials noted there has been a 35% increase in the number of MIS-C infections locally over the past two weeks. The syndrome generally develops in children after they had COVID-19, although it has occasionally affected patients with no known prior infection.

According to state figures, there were 3,426 people hospitalized in the county due to COVID as of Friday, with 1,032 people in intensive care. In early January, there were more than 8,000 people hospitalized due to the virus.

"So there is positive news in terms of things coming down," Davis said. "We want that to continue to come down because as those case numbers come down we get into less restrictive tiers and are able to consider opening up more of the economy ... and have less restrictive modifications."

He urged people to continue adhering to protocols such as masking and physical distancing. He acknowledged changes that were formalized this week, allowing a resumption of indoor church services with limited capacity and limits on activities during services. But he stressed that despite the change, "it's still safer for places of worship to hold outdoor and remote services only. These are the safest options for those at high risk of severe illness from COVID-19 and those that live with them."

Davis also expressed dismay over plans by Sun Valley's Grace Community Church -- which has repeatedly defied county and court orders by holding massive indoor services -- to host an indoor religious conference in early March that typically attracts more than 3,000 people. He said the county is "exploring its options" for challenging the event. Such conferences are barred under health restrictions, but it's unclear if the conflict would be exempted as a religious gathering.

"The county is very concerned about the public health impacts that could come from an event like this if it's held, especially as we continue to see high case numbers and large numbers of people in hospitals that are sick with COVID-19 and as cases are being identified with different variants of the virus in our county, in our state, across the nation and in other areas worldwide," Davis said.

In terms of vaccines, Simon said that most recent figures show 1,345,949 doses have been administered in the county, with 1,047,074 of them first doses. A total of 13.5 % of the county's population aged 16 and over have received at least one dose, and 3.8% of that population are fully vaccinated.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.