Vidya Sethuraman
India Post News Service
LA County’s COVID Joint Information Center continues a groundbreaking initiative to inform ethnic news media on the county’s response to the COVID 19 pandemic and the vaccine rollout. EMS briefing on March 4 highlighted the work of the LA County.
Supervisor Hilda Solis, Chair of the LA County Board of Supervisors, First District said hope is on the horizon. She added we have been seeing steady decline in case numbers, deaths and hospitalization in LA County. This was possible as most of us followed the county orders such as mask mandate, not attending large gatherings, practicing physical distances. As of 5 March, there were more than 2.4 million doses administered in the county, with more than 814,000 people fully vaccinated. This number is inspiring; we have a lot of work yet to do.
We need to vaccinate the Latinx and Black population across the county. Only 34.3% of Latinx and 28% of Black population over 65 are vaccinated, this dangerously low. To address this, the county started a vaccination clinic at Nueva Maravilla targeted residents of the public housing development in East Los Angeles. “This is part of our ongoing efforts to ensure an equitable distribution of the vaccine and that our most vulnerable communities get access now,” said county supervisor Hilda Solís, who attended the vaccination.
First doses of the Pfizer vaccine were administered to 50 residents living at Nueva Maravilla who are 65 years of age and older, according to Solís. In a joint effort with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), the mobile vaccination sites at East Los Angeles. She was pleased to announce that Los Angeles County officials and Saint John’s Well Child and Family Center partnered with other East Los Angeles leaders to open up a COVID-19 vaccine site at the Civic Center to help residents in East L.A., Boyle Heights and Southeast LA. According to officials, this walk-up site will be able to vaccinate up to 400 – 600 people per day and will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Dr. Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, LA County Director of Public Health said the daily number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 continues to steadily decline. “Vaccines offer powerful protection against serious disease and death for the vaccinated person; it is not yet known if people who are vaccinated can become infected and pass the virus on to others.” As hospitalization decreases, we can see a decline in death numbers.
She urged LA county residents to avoid travel during the spring break. She issued another warning against leisure travel, in light of the upcoming Spring Break, stressing that anyone who travels out of the area is still required to quarantine for 10 days when they return back. L.A. County remained in the state’s most restrictive purple tier with an adjusted case rate of 7.2 new cases per 100,000 residents and a test positivity rate of 3.5%. L.A. County is very close to meeting the metric thresholds for the less restrictive red tier in the State’s Blueprint for a Safety Economy, which will provide our county with more opportunities to reopen for additional activities,” added Dr.Barbara.
Jazmin Flores, Lead “Promotora” for the East Los Angeles Women’s Center described the role of promotora’s to educate and bring awareness to the communities most impacted by this pandemic. A group of community health workers, or promotoras, is taking information about the covid vaccine directly to Latino communities.
We are outside supermarkets. We carry flyers with phone numbers to call for help. There is a lot of distrust in underserved communities. Members of our communities want to speak to people that can relate to them; we play an imperative role in breaking the myths and misleading information. Through our community initiative program 70 ELAWC promotoras have reached over 25,000 community members providing them education and awareness on COVID-19, added Jazmin.
Travel increases the risk of getting and spreading COVID-19. To avoid this, please postpone spring travel and continue doing your part to slow the spread.
