The COVID-19 death toll crossed the 15,000 mark in Los Angeles County this week. Health officials have ramped up vaccination efforts by opening five large-scale vaccine sites.
The newly opened vaccination centers are at Six Flags Magic Mountain, Cal State Northridge, the Pomona Fairplex, the L.A. County Office of Education in Downey and the Forum in Inglewood. They will operate in addition to the more than 75 smaller sites already operating.
The city-operated location at Dodger Stadium is billed as the largest-capacity vaccine site in the nation. County officials also expanded access to the vaccine last Tuesday, allowing all residents 65 and over to begin making vaccination appointments and start receiving the inoculations on last Wednesday.
The vaccine efforts come at a critical stage of the county’s fight against COVID-19, with transmission rates remaining high and the numbers of cases and deaths continuing to climb.
Health officials have warned in recent weeks that despite a leveling-off of hospital admissions, the numbers could rapidly climb again when people infected over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays begin to get sick enough to require medical care.
Making matters potentially worse was news that the county had confirmed the first local case of a variant strain of the virus that was first detected in the United Kingdom. That strain, known of B.1.1.7, is not considered more deadly, but it is far more contagious, passing easily from person to person and having the potential to spread rapidly.
Officials at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center announced they have identified yet another strain of the virus, known as CAL.20C, which was detected in more than one-third of the COVID patients being treated at the hospital. The strain was also found in about one-fourth of samples from COVID patients across Southern California.
Cedars-Sinai officials said the CAL.20C strain is distinct from the UK variant. It’s still unclear if the CAL.20C strain spreads more quickly, is deadlier or is resistant to current virus treatments. But Cedars researchers said the strain is partly responsible for the large surge in cases the county has experienced over the last two months.
Hospital officials said the strain was virtually non-existent in the county in October, but by December it represented 36.4 percent of COVID cases at Cedars-Sinai and 24 percent of COVID samples collected across Southern California.
The strain has also been detected in patients in Northern California, New York, Washington, D.C., and abroad in Oceania, according to Cedars-Sinai.
Increasing fatalities due to the virus prompted a grim move on Jan. 17 by Southland air-quality regulators, who lifted the cap on the number of bodies local crematories could cremate. Crematoriums normally operate under a limit designed to reduce the impact of the cremations on air quality.
