All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

The United States Has A New President — We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident

Today, Joseph R. Biden Jr. was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States.  Kamala D. Harris was sworn in as Vice President of the United States.  There are many things to be proud of with this administration.   When watching the swearing-in, I first sighed.  It was a sigh of relief.  No longer […]

The United States Has A New President — We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident

Coronavirus: 6,492 new cases, 262 deaths reported in Los Angeles County on Jan. 20

The County of Los Angeles Public Health reported 6,492 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, Jan. 20, increasing the cumulative total in the county to 1,038,092 cases since tracking began.

There were 262 deaths reported by the county on Wednesday, raising the total number of reported deaths to 14,384.

The data on deaths in the county is compiled from death certificates or gathered through the course of case investigations and can take weeks to process.

The county also reported 7,253 patients in local hospitals with the coronavirus on Wednesday. With 23% of those in ICUs.

The county’s breakdown of deaths by age is as follows:

  • 80 and older: 5,066 (37.8%)
  • 65-79: 4,406 (32.9%
  • 50-64: 2,615 (19.5%)
  • 30-49: 882 (6.58%)
  • 18-29: 91 (0.679%)
  • Unknown: 333 (2.49%)

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California regions and ICU capacity for Jan. 19

As ICU capacity dwindles in Southern California the percentages in this graphic have been adjusted by state public health officials to represent the high levels of COVID-19 patients among all ICU patients. More actual beds may be available.

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Vaccines administered as of Jan. 17

The California Department of Public Health site shows a total of 3,226,775 vaccine doses, which includes the first and second dose, have been shipped to local health departments and health care systems as of Jan. 17.

The totals of vaccines administered across six different regions are in the maps below. As of Jan. 17, a total of 1,393,224 vaccine doses have been administered statewide.That’s up 609,748 from the Jan. 11 report. The state cautions that the numbers do not represent true day-to-day change as reporting may be delayed.

 

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Dallas County axes plan to prioritize vaccinating communities of color after state threatens to slash allocation

Texas state leadership racist even in giving vaccine to frontline workers first.
Many Dallas County seniors received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccination site at Fair Park in Dallas.

Many Dallas County seniors received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccination site at Fair Park in Dallas.

Credit: Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune

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Faced with the threat that the state might slash its vaccine allocation, Dallas officials on Wednesday reversed course on a plan that would have prioritized doses for people living in the county’s most vulnerable ZIP codes, primarily in communities of color.

A divided Dallas County Commissioners Court had voted Tuesday to prioritize vaccines at its Fair Park distribution center for individuals in mostly Black and Latino neighborhoods, a reflection of increased vulnerability to the coronavirus in 11 Dallas County ZIP codes, according to the Dallas Morning News.

In Texas and across the nation, communities of color have been hardest hit by the novel coronavirus, and health officials are grappling with how to ensure equity in the vaccine rollout. In Dallas, as in other major Texas cities, distribution sites are more commonly located in white neighborhoods, and early data showed the North Texas county had distributed most of its shots to residents of whiter, wealthier neighborhoods.

Dallas leaders tried to prioritize any residents who meet the state’s criteria for vaccination and live in one of the 11 ZIP codes, which are all completely or partially south of Interstate 30, a dividing line that splits the county along racial and socioeconomic lines, the Dallas Morning News reported this week.

But Texas health officials pushed back on the proposal, warning that it was “not acceptable to [the Department of State Health Services.]”

“While we ask hub providers to ensure vaccine reaches the hardest hit areas and populations, solely vaccinating people who live in those areas is not in line with the agreement to be a hub provider,” Imelda Garcia, an associate commissioner with DSHS, wrote to Dallas health officials in a letter obtained by The Texas Tribune. “If Dallas County is unable to meet these expectations, we will be forced to reduce the weekly vaccine allocation to Dallas County Health and Human Services and no longer consider it a hub provider.”

Garcia asked Dallas for an update on the vaccination plan by Thursday morning. Her letter came after County Judge Clay Jenkins wrote to state officials asking whether the county’s plan was permissible.

The county government is responsible for just 10% of the vaccines distributed in Dallas County. Most of the vaccines are actually distributed by hospitals and other health-related institutions.

In an emergency meeting Wednesday evening, Jenkins successfully encouraged commissioners to reverse the plan. They could broach the issue again, he said, but for now they should axe the prioritization plan to ensure the county gets its next shipment from the state.

In a spirited and at times tense meeting, Commissioner J.J. Koch, who proposed the order in the first place, pushed to maintain language prioritizing the vulnerable ZIP codes and accused Jenkins of being “disingenuous.” Koch proposed tweaks to the order to meet the state’s specifications while still prioritizing the hard-hit communities.

“I’m not willing to risk the vaccine for tens of thousands of people over the next few weeks because you guess that your order is good enough to satisfy the state,” Jenkins said.

“I’m certain” that the order will be acceptable to state officials, Koch shot back.

“You got us in the situation we’re in tonight,” Jenkins replied. “The more you keep doing this, the more you’re hurting the people of Dallas County.”

Ultimately, the court voted to rescind the order — but agreed to meet again later this week to design a vaccination plan that will be “transparent and accountable,” as Koch put it.

“We’re all trying to get to the same place,” Jenkins said, trying to pacify the group.

“No, we’re not,” objected Commissioner John Wiley Price, who represents South Dallas and had raised concerns throughout the meeting that the county was not doing enough to serve vulnerable communities.

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson declined to comment on the debate.

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Claims Tunisian pres. made antisemitic rhetoric false, says his office – The Jerusalem Post

But Falso, a fact-checking platform in Tunisia that has been critical of the government, used slow-motion and speed-up techniques to discover that Saied actually said “hal yahoon,” a rhetoric question that means “Is that acceptable?!”
Prior to the denial by the president’s office, the Conference of European Rabbis protested in a statement what they believed to be an antisemitic remark by Saied.

Source: Claims Tunisian pres. made antisemitic rhetoric false, says his office – The Jerusalem Post

Pasadena’s Mayor Gordo asks state to turn Rose Bowl into coronavirus vaccination site

Asking for more doses of the coronavirus vaccine and requesting state help to transform the Rose Bowl into a massive vaccine distribution site, Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday, Jan. 19, saying the city could inoculate many more people if it had the right resources.

“The city of Pasadena has invested significant resources respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and established needed infrastructure to rapidly and equitably administer vaccine to the community,” Gordo wrote in the letter. “Nonetheless, it is clear the city is quickly approaching threshold capacity, which is insufficient to satisfy local demand for the vaccine.”

Gordo asked the state to support a “regional Mega Vaccination Medical Point of Dispensing (MPOD) Site in Pasadena with a direct state allocation of vaccine,” suggesting the Rose Bowl Stadium as an ideal location “given its size and familiarity.”

Los Angeles County already has one such site open at Dodger Stadium and five other large-scale facilities around the region, plus many smaller ones.

For several weeks now, city and public health officials have complained that they have too few vaccines and too many qualifying patients.

To date, at least 9,117 doses have been administered to Pasadena residents and workers as of Tuesday, Jan. 19, according to the city’s newly released vaccine dashboard. The city has given out 3,720 doses itself; the rest were distributed by local hospitals and pharmacies.

For the past two weeks, the city ran its own distribution sites for two days a week, delivering about 2,300 doses in that period. Soon, it will double its capacity by staying open for four days a week, distributing about 2,800 doses each week, the letter says.

Pasadena Public Health Director Dr. Ying-Ying Goh, who is also the city’s medical officer,  said this escalation will be used to deliver many patients their second dose while keeping up the pace of its first-round inoculations, she told the Public Safety Committee on Tuesday.

“With the rapidly approaching need to administer second doses, our ability to administer first doses to community members will diminish,” Gordo wrote in the letter. “Despite leveraging all city resources, it would take two years to vaccinate everyone in the city at a rate of 1,500 first doses per week.”

Gordo called out pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens “who were expected to play an important role in vaccination administration,” but the city’s health department “has far too often had to respond to community needs assigned to these partners, expending valuable city personnel and precious vaccine supply.

“The city was expecting to become the safety net for the system, but instead we have become the system.”

These challenges, coupled with inconsistent and inadequate vaccine deliveries from the state “have made it improbable to meet the reasonable expectations of our residents and resulting demand for vaccine,” Gordo concluded, arguing the challenges have only become more pronounced as the city starts to distribute more second doses.

Just this week, Pasadena opened up its vaccine clinics to residents over the age of 75. There’s about 11,000 people who fit into this category in Pasadena, but fewer than 2,000 of them have been vaccinated thus far, according to city data.

The city still isn’t done vaccinating all of its healthcare workers, though it’s getting close, Goh said.

She noted that the pharmacy chains moved “slower than we expected or wanted” to inoculate residents and workers at the city’s elder care facilities. Still, after a month at work and with an assist from the city, they’ve finished all of its nursing homes and have started working with Pasadena’s many assisted living facilities.

Goh explained the convoluted distribution system to city officials on Tuesday, pointing to hospitals, pharmacies, city workers and private doctors, saying, “It looks busy because it is not an organized system. There are many, many players here.”

At this point, the city is officially in Phase 1B of its vaccine distribution as it wraps up Phase 1A. The latter category includes healthcare workers, elder care facility patients and workers; the former includes senior citizens and some essential workers.

There are about 34,000 people in these two categories living and working in Pasadena, Goh said. That’s far more people than vaccine doses in the city, considering each person requires two doses.

She continued to say that Pasadena Unified School District will soon start vaccinating its staff members as part of the Phase 1B efforts.

Within a few weeks, she hopes to start vaccinating patients who are 65 years and older.

“We are, of course, limited by our vaccine supply, but we will open this up as soon as possible,” she said. 

Related links

She encouraged residents to reach out to their primary care doctors, explaining that the city wants to have doctors coordinate vaccine distribution, not city officials.

“In this country, people don’t rely on the public health department for the provision of their medical care. They rely on their primary care physicians,” City Manager Steve Mermell said during the Public Safety Committee meeting.

“But just like with the testing, there’s been a lot of gaps in the system. Normally the public health department would step in and just fill the gap. We’re actually doing a lot more than that.”

You can read Gordo’s full letter here.