FEMA opened its first COVID-19 mass vaccination sites on Tuesday and settled in Los Angeles and Oakland as part of an effort by the Biden administration to speed up gunfire and reach minority communities hard hit by the outbreak.
Meanwhile, snow and ice in much of the US forced some vaccination events to be canceled and threatened to disrupt vaccine delivery in the coming days. The Houston health department lost power and had to scramble to fire thousands of shots before they spoiled.
The developments came when the urge to vaccinate got underway. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US gives an average of about 1.67 million doses per day. At the same time, deaths have plummeted over the past six weeks and new cases have plummeted.
Nearly 39.7 million Americans, or about 12% of the U.S. population, have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and 15 million have received both injections, the CDC said.
The death rate averages about 2,400 per day, more than 900 less than their mid-January peak. And the average number of new cases per day has dropped to about 85,000, the lowest in 3 1/2 months. That is lower than a peak of nearly a quarter of a million a day in early January. The total death toll in the US is close to 490,000.
Early in the morning in Los Angeles, dozens of cars lined up with people inside reading the newspapers and passing the time, half an hour before the 9am opening of the country’s first massive vaccination site. with assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Troops in camouflage clothing lined the sprawling parking lot of California State University in Los Angeles, where some 40 white tents were erected and dozens of orange cones placed to guide traffic.
The site, set up in severely Latino East LA as part of an effort to reach communities disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, aims to vaccinate up to 6,000 people a day. Another such site was opened at the Oakland Coliseum, near working-class black and Latino neighborhoods.
Badly hit California has overtaken New York State for the highest death toll in the country, at more than 47,000.
The Los Angeles vaccination site “is located near a community disproportionately affected by this pandemic,” said Governor Gavin Newsom. “The effort here is to address that problem directly.”
The Biden government plans to establish 100 such federally supported vaccination sites across the country in conjunction with state authorities.
Elsewhere in the country, the coronavirus put a big damper on Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The Bourbon Street of the French Quarter, where the rowdiest and most brutal parties usually take place, was closed off with police barricades and the bars closed.
“It’s hard to wrap my head around it,” said New Orleans attorney Dave Lanser, wearing a luminous green cape and black mask with a curved beak, looking up and down an almost empty Bourbon Street.
“I don’t think there is any way to do it safely this year,” he said. So I support canceling the parades, closing the bars, all that sort of thing. It’s just kind of the reality of it. “
Mardi Gras crowds were blamed for a serious COVID-19 outbreak in Louisiana last year.
Snow, ice and bitter cold forced vaccinations in places like Memphis, Tennessee and Missouri.
Houston’s Harris County rushed to deliver more than 8,000 doses of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine after a public health facility lost power early Monday and its backup generator also failed, authorities said. The shots were distributed in three hospitals, Rice University and the county jail.
“It feels great. I am very grateful to you, ” said Harry Golen, a 19-year-old sophomore who waited nearly four hours with his friends, most of them in the freezing cold, and was one of the last to get the photos – which otherwise wouldn’t to happen. I only reached students in March or April.
More than 400,000 additional vaccine doses to be received in Texas now will arrive no earlier than Wednesday, officials said.
The Biden administration said the severe weather is expected to disrupt shipments from a FedEx facility in Memphis and a UPS facility in Louisville, Kentucky. Both serve as hubs for shipping vaccines to a number of states.
The government is increasing the amount of vaccines sent to states to 13.5 million doses per week, a 57% increase from when Biden took office almost a month ago, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced.
Psaki also said the government is doubling the amount of vaccines sent to pharmacies in the US to 2 million doses per week as part of a program to improve access to neighborhoods.
Associated Press authors Kevin McGill in New Orleans, Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri, and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.