Days Until COVID-19 Vaccine Eligibility Expands To Millions Of Californians
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) -- California is less than 48 hours away from vaccine eligibility opening up to millions of people.
Currently, the only people who can be vaccinated are:
- Healthcare workers and long-term care residents (Phase 1A)
- People with a high chance of exposure and those 65 or older (Phase 1B)
- Individuals age 16 or older at higher risk
Starting April 1, eligibility will expand to adults 50 years and older, and on April 15, every Californian over 16 years old becomes eligible to receive the coronavirus vaccine.
The question is now if vaccine supply will be able to keep up with the expected increase in demand.
There is an effort to help people sign up for their COVID-19 vaccines.
Andrew Friedman created findmyvaxla.com after he struggled to get an appointment for his grandmother.
"I'm fairly technologically savvy," Friedman said. "It took me about 15 mins, and I realized there's a better way for technology to facilitate this."
The website finds available appointments from various locations, like pharmacies and hospitals along with city and county vaccine sites, pooling them together in one place.
"Really making sure that we get it to as many people as possible, help as many people as possible and get people vaccinated," Friedman said.
Los Angeles County health officials say there is increasing supply for the anticipated spike in demand as eligibility opens up, but that it may take some time to get everyone their shots.
"We don't have yet have enough doses to vaccinate everyone that's eligible, so we're going to need to ask people to be patient while our supply continues to increase," said L.A. County Health Director Barbara Ferrer.
L.A. County's website will be updated starting tomorrow for people who are 50 and older to begin scheduling appointments for when eligibility opens on Thursday.
Details about vaccine distribution in L.A. County can be found here.