Vaccinations available beginning Thursday for people over 65

by Steven Felschundneff | steven@claremont-courier.com

On Monday Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda L. Solis signed an executive order directing the county’s department of public health to make COVID-19 vaccination appointments available to residents 65 years of age and older beginning on January 21.

Residents can visit VaccinateLACounty.com for more information, or watch public health’s COVID-19 Vaccine Town Hall tomorrow, January 19 from 6 to 9 p.m.

The town hall update will be streamed live on L.A. County Department of Public Health’s Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube feeds. The program will offer information about the COVID-19 vaccine, how it was developed, where it will be distributed and when it will be made available to the general public.

“The COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been an enormous undertaking, especially during an unprecedented surge where cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continue to skyrocket,” Supervisor Solis said in a statement. “However, if we are to ever get out of this dark winter, it is critical that we make headway vaccinating people 65 years of age and older as soon as possible.”

On Tuesday the county will launch its five large capacity coronavirus vaccination sites, including one at the Pomona Fairplex, Lot 15, 2370 East Arrow Highway, La Verne. Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is only offering the vaccine to healthcare workers and the staff and residents of skilled nursing facilities.

Public health announced on Monday that 335 of 340 skilled nursing facilities in the county—98.5 percent—have administered the first dose of the vaccine to staff and residents. Nearly 39,000 doses have been administered and the remaining facilities are in the process of administering the vaccines, or are scheduled to complete vaccinations this week.

All skilled nursing facilities in the county conduct weekly testing of residents and staff, and for the week ending January 2, more than 70,000 COVID-19 tests were completed. A total of 2,532 people tested positive for COVID-19—1,423 residents and 1,109 staff—which is a positivity rate of just under four percent, significantly lower than the positivity rate among the general public at 15 percent.

In the same week that cumulative coronavirus cases in Los Angeles County surpassed one million, the post-Christmas holiday surge is showing signs of peaking as hospitalization rates fall.

While daily new cases are still alarmingly high at more than 14,300 on average over the past week, daily hospitalizations have dropped from 7,910 on Monday, January 11 to 7,328 this Monday. Also the positivity rate, which measures the number of people who receive a positive result at testing centers, fell from 16.5 percent on January 11 to 14 percent on Sunday. The daily positivity rate hit a high of 20 percent in late December and the cumulative rate is still quite high at 18 percent.

The county reports 1,873 cumulative cases in Claremont as of Monday, and sadly seven more deaths for a total of 37. This reflects 162 new cases over the last week which indicates that the community spread here is still quite high and as a result, residents should take the risk of being infected seriously when venturing outside one’s household.

 

 

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