Watch: Opening of new community vaccination site at Cal State Los Angeles
Gov. Gavin Newsom will join federal, state and local leaders at the opening of a community vaccination site at Cal State Los Angeles.
Watch live at approx. 10:45 a.m. here:
Last week, the Governor visited vaccination sites in Fresno, San Diego, San Francisco and Santa Clara to highlight the state’s efforts to ramp up vaccinations, which have now topped 6 million doses administered.
Newsom is also expected to update the state on plans to have Blue Shield of California help administer 3 million vaccines a week.
Blue Shield of California has plans to help the state administer 3 million vaccines a week by March 1st.
A contract was made public on Monday that reveals the company’s agreement to operate as a “Third-Party Administrator” and to “build a statewide vaccine network to ensure the rapid delivery of current supply of the COVID19 vaccine to Californians, consistent with the Agency’s COVID-19 Vaccine Allocation Guidelines.”
The contract explains that Blue Shield will assist in allocating vaccines directly to providers to “maximize distribution efficiency, having timely transparency into where the vaccines are and to whom they have been administered, and ensuring they are distributed to communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.”
Los Angeles County meets mark to open elementary schools
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Falling coronavirus rates are expected to allow elementary schools in Los Angeles County to reopen as early as this week, but that is not expected to immediately happen in the huge Los Angeles Unified School District.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a statement Monday night that it expects to announce Tuesday that the county has reached the threshold set by the state for reopening — an adjusted case rate of 25 per 100,000.
“This encouraging news means that dozens of elementary schools will be permitted to reopen for in-class instruction for students TK-6 as early as this week,” the statement said. “All schools wishing to reopen must submit plans to the County Department of Public Health and the California Department of Public Health certifying that they have implemented a full range of safety measures to permit a safe reopening.
Schools were informed of the development in an emailed letter, the department said.
Los Angeles Unified, however, remains in negotiations with teachers on reopening, the Los Angeles Times reported.
LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner has said the nation’s second-largest school district is physically prepared for reopening, with the proper health practices and protocols already in place.
Beutner said last week that the district has done everything that federal Centers for Disease Control & Prevention guidelines require for a safe school environment and has gone beyond that by implementing a comprehensive school-based COVID-19 testing program.
“Los Angeles Unified has done more than any school district in the nation to prepare schools to welcome students back to in-person classes,” Beutner said on Feb. 8.
County health officials reported Monday that the daily test positivity rate was 5.2%, down 64% from Jan. 15, when the rate was 14.3%. Since then, COVID-19 hospitalizations have also fallen 60%.
California’s seven-day positivity rate was down to 3.7% and the daily number of new coronavirus cases was below 6,500, far below the peak on Dec. 15 of more than 53,000, the state health agency reported Monday.
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