Coronavirus - Gray-Area Vaccinations

I think someone in the government is reading my post. After last week's post, I read that 4 new super vaccination sites opened in Los Angeles County. Those were in the pipeline it turns out, but like so much of the coronavirus and coronavirus vaccination news, it is hard to find and hard to separate fact from fiction.

Last week, I said one way Israel is vaccinating so many people so quickly is that they have a standby line so that at the end of the day, if there is any vaccine left they put it in someone's arm rather than let it go to waste. The reason why there can be left over vaccine at the end of the day is because people cancel their appointments or don't show up and any vaccine defrosted has to be used within 6 hours or get dumped.

Two weeks ago, I heard someone had received the vaccine and did not fit in any of the priority categories, but since their company was in the industry and had vaccine left over they started inoculating the rest of their employees. Last week, I heard similar stories about other companies doing the same thing.

And then there was The Los Angeles Times story last week about "unofficial" standby lines where people are waiting outside clinics - sometimes all day - for the hope that there will be left over vaccine at the end of the day. Some people are lucky and actually receiving the vaccine, but most are not and go back and wait again the next day.

The Times' article commented about the wealthy jumping the vaccine priority queues to get the shots, but they are standing in the same "unofficial" lines anyone else could. And the 3 stories I heard had nothing to do with wealth in terms of who is receiving the "unused" vaccines. No one I have heard about has paid for early access to the vaccine. It was a more of who you know and where you worked.

There are moral and perhaps legal issues here, but in the end people are beginning to receive vaccinations at a much quicker rate by plying the gray area of vaccinations which in the end helps society as a whole as more people are vaccinated.

In the last week, new coronavirus cases in Los Angeles County have dropped from 39,000 a day to 23,004. Deaths are still at their unforgivable high levels, but hopefully that is due to the delayed correlation between new cases and the death rate and we will see a decrease in deaths soon.

There is hope.

Take care and be safe.

Posts weekly

Coronavirus - Herd Immunity In Los Angeles

Los Angeles reported that 1 out of every 3 people in the County have been infected with Covid-19. We may be the first population group outside of Sweden to try herd immunity. Herd immunity to a virus is when 60-80% of a population has a virus' antibodies in their system. We are already at 33% infected. At this rate, in another couple of months we could hit 60%.

Los Angeles opened its first vaccination super center this weekend with a trial run for 2,000 people. They hope to inoculate 12,000 people a day when it is fully operational. That would be 120,000 people every ten days. Good numbers. I look forward to those numbers increasing as more centers are opened.

With the coronavirus' exponential spread and vaccinations hopefully increasing exponentially as well, we may have herd immunity even sooner and Los Angeles may go from a hot spot crisis zone to a beacon of hope.

I watched a CNBC report that Israel has enough vaccinations for everyone over 16 by March. It was quite fascinating as LA County's website predicts I will be vaccinated for Covid-19 sometime in May or June. How did Israel do it (Israel/US):

- Population 9 million / Los Angeles County 10 million (US 331 million) - Universal health care / Combination state run, private medical care (US is the only developed nation in the world without universal healthcare by the way) - Large vaccination centers have been running for over a month / LA opened first center Friday - Standby line for anyone if unused vaccine is available at end of day / nothing similar in LA - Reserved enough doses for entire population from 1 supplier / US reservations were spread across suppliers - some still waiting for FDA approval

Hopefully, the US can learn best practices from its fellow countries: universal healthcare, more vaccination centers, standby lines, follow up on research and target the most promising drugs to reserve in advance.

California has floated the idea of a standby line - online standby. A more expensive and time consuming process, but at least it is a step in the right direction.

In conclusion, there is hope. The two waves of coronavirus vaccinations and infections are rushing together. It seems like one way or another Los Angeles will acheive herd immunity much sooner than predicted and lockdowns will be a thing of the past.

Take care and be safe.

Posts weekly

Coronavirus - Acting Update

Los Angeles asked the entertainment industry to shutdown for 2 weeks because of the rapid spread of covid-19 sweeping the county. Friday, 318 deaths were reported along with 18,313 new cases in Los Angeles.

Through November, I only knew 1 person personally who had covid-19. Since Thanksgiving, I know 4 more people plus their family members who had become infected. I definitely understand the abundance of caution.

Still, asking yet another industry of thousands of people to stop working is tough. (Salons, gyms, servers, amusement parks, and others have already been forced to stop.) I recently had one job postpone a shoot for a month. Fortunately, I secured another gig to replace it. Yesterday, I saw more jobs posted for background actors to work than I had seen in a month. Still, Hollywood is super cautious. I imagine this is due to all the break outs on sets last December. One job posting said that they were going to pay a background actor to be tested 5 times in the next 9 days and to not work any of the 8 days prior to working a one day shoot. Another posting said that to be eligible, a background actor could not have worked any job in the past 4 weeks.

I am very glad Hollywood is taking precautions as nobody wants to get sick - but it takes a toll on the finances.

If only the coronavirus vaccine rollout was proceeding as smoothly as we had hoped. Only 6 million doses as of Friday have been injected across the country versus the 20 million the government had hoped for by 2020. NPR gave numerous reasons for the slow rollout, but whatever the reason, thousands of Americans are dying across the country daily because they have not been vaccinated.

I can only hope vaccination process speeds up for all our sakes and that Hollywood's more strigent precautions are effective in keeping its employees safe in the meantime.

Take care and be safe. Posts weekly