Cal State Bakersfield has been the go-to vaccination site for the young and the healthy from L.A. County for more than a week, ever since word spread that the facility had more doses than patients & no restrictions on age, eligibility or county residency. latimes.com/california/sto…
Thousands of Southern California residents in recent days have headed over the Grapevine and into the Central Valley. By Monday night, “Bakersfield” was trending on Twitter. latimes.com/california/sto…
The site’s excess capacity is due at least in part to a relatively high rate of vaccine hesitancy in Kern County, including among evangelical Christians and low-income residents of color, according to officials at Kaiser Permanente. latimes.com/california/sto…
About 24% of people living in Kern County have received at least one dose, compared with 33% of residents statewide, according to the Los Angeles Times vaccine tracker.
Bakersfield officials say it’s true the site is vaccinating everyone 16 and older. But they stopped short of encouraging out-of-town visitors, cautioning that the clinic is meant to serve Kern County, and the appointment system is reserved for locals. latimes.com/california/sto…
“We have the capacity, we have the vaccine — it would be a crime to turn people away,” said David Womack, senior vice president of Kaiser Permanente in Kern County. “We want to get shots in arms.”
📈 📉 Over the year, Californians experienced a complex set of guidelines that frequently changed, varied from county to county and created a whipsaw effect where businesses were open one week and sometimes closed within days. 📉📈
UC students do not have access to equal resources and services across its 10 campuses.
UC Riverside students fall far behind their peers when it comes to receiving essential services — transfer student support, counseling, academic advising.
Many Riverside facilities are in deep disrepair. Students have endured falling ceiling tiles, leaking roofs, antiquated air systems that emit mold and lab equipment breakdowns. Staff morale has been low and turnover high.
Yet the Inland Empire campus educates a larger share of needy students — about half are low-income, underrepresented minorities or the first in their families to attend college — than all other campuses except for UC Merced.
Even when state restrictions lift, experts say it may be a year or more before California convention centers host the kind of mega-crowds that flocked to Comic-Con, NAMM and E3 in past years.
Among the reasons for the smaller events: State officials say COVID-19 protocols for large-scale indoor events will require testing or vaccination verifications, which could exclude some would-be attendees. latimes.com/business/story…
Surveys show that many business travelers still don’t feel safe meeting face-to-face indoors with thousands of strangers. latimes.com/business/story…
As supplies of the vaccine have increased recently some parts of California now have periodic excess.
And that is leading officials to make doses available to all adults, even those not eligible under current rules. latimes.com/california/sto…
That occurred this week in several places, including Riverside County, Bakersfield, the Bay Area and even parts of Los Angeles. But those extra slots have been filled quickly, leading some to be turned away.
By Thursday morning, the site had so many walk-ins that staff started turning people away, said Brian Ferguson, a spokesman with the Office of Emergency Services.
“They weren’t turned away because of eligibility, just because of availability,” he said. latimes.com/california/sto…
Ferguson said the decision to cut off walk-up access was based on the rate that people with appointments were filling up at the site. latimes.com/california/sto…
The site typically administers about 7,000 vaccines a day, he said, and about 1,500 of them were spoken for by people who made new appointments overnight or walked up Thursday morning.
A group of parents — who say their children have been illegally shortchanged by Los Angeles Unified School District’s return-to-school plan — is seeking a court order to force the district to reopen “to the greatest extent possible” within seven days.
The lawsuit, filed late Wednesday, asks the court to prohibit L.A. Unified from using a six-foot distancing standard in classrooms because it effectively prevents the school district “from providing in-person instruction to the greatest extent possible.” latimes.com/california/sto…
It also seeks to prohibit the district from requiring students to take regular coronavirus tests as a condition for returning to campus.