City Of LA Expands Eligibility To Residents 16 And Older, County Announces New Household Vaccination Effort
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Los Angeles city residents age 16 and older can already start making appointments to get vaccinated through the city's registration portal, though the appointments will not be until Tuesday at the earliest.
"It's great," Corey Brule, an L.A. resident getting his vaccine at Cal State, said. "I'm eager to not be a part of this COVID lifestyle anymore, so I think the stress is going to start washing off pretty immediately."
And though there are still questions about vaccine availability, with Johnson & Johnson shipping out fewer doses due to manufacturing problems, healthcare workers say the expansion is necessary.
"In order to prevent the next surge from happening, we need a large number of people to be immune, not naturally but through the vaccines," Dr. Suman Radhakrishna, director of infectious disease at Dignity Health California Hospital, said.
She said giving the vaccine to younger, healthier people will help slow the spread dramatically.
"These are the individuals who may carry asymptomatic disease, and if you vaccinate them, then the likelihood of it spreading around is going to be a lot less," Radhakrishna said.
And those able to get vaccinated over the weekend said they were looking forward to returning to a more normal pre-pandemic life.
"I'm definitely excited, because I'm going to be traveling," Amir Manochehri said. "I'm going to go to Florida, so I want to be prepared because I'm going to see my sister out there."
Also on Sunday, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced appointments for Tuesday and Wednesday would be available for entire households living in a number of communities.
To be eligible, at least one member of the household must be currently eligible to receive the vaccine and the households must live in one of the communities below:
- The Forum: Florence, Lynwood, Maywood, Rosewood, Watts, Willowbrook, West Athens, Westmont and Balboa;
- Pomona Fairplex: Azusa, Baldwin Park, Bradbury, El Monte, Industry, Irwindale and La Puente;
- Cal State University, Northridge: San Fernando, Sun Valley and Sylmar;
- Office of Education in Downey: Harbor Area, Hawaiian Gardens, Paramount and Wilmington;
- Balboa Sports Complex: North Hollywood, Reseda and Van Nuys; and
- Magic Mountain: All communities.
To make an appointment, household members will enter the same eligibility criteria as the person eligible — for example over 50, or a qualifying health condition or job sector — when booking an appointment through the MyTurn website.
All other information, including name, date of birth and other information will have to be correctly entered for each individual.
On Thursday, the state will expand vaccine eligibility to all Californians age 16 and older, though those under the age of 18 can only receive the Pfizer vaccine.