City to Begin Offering Second Booster Doses of COVID Vaccine on Monday

Pasadena health officials said they will join their County counterparts on Monday and offer additional booster doses of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines for those who are 50 years and older or immunocompromised and aged 12 or older.

The County began providing the secondary boosters on Wednesday after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its recommendations to allow qualified people who received an initial booster dose at least 4 months prior to be eligible for another mRNA booster (Moderna or Pfizer).

City officials said earlier Pasadena waited to verify that the MyTurn.ca.gov system was set up to properly record and track the second booster doses before arranging to provide the additional vaccinations in Pasadena.

“We want to make sure that digital records are accurately tracking all doses,” Pasadena city spokesperson Lisa Derderian explained Tuesday afternoon.

Pasadena residents can find a COVID-19 vaccine clinic at MyTurn.ca.gov, visit a PPHD clinic (click here for more) or call the city’s Citizen Service Center at (626) 744-7311 for assistance finding a clinic.

Appointments are not needed for PPHD clinics.

The city’s calendar shows three vaccination clinics are scheduled for the week of April 4, one on Monday from 1:30 to 4 p.m. and one on Tuesday from 8:30 to 4 p.m. at the PPHD building at 1845 N. Fair Oaks Ave., and a third on Wednesday from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at First AME Church, at 1700 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena.

Local health officials said COVID-19 vaccines and boosters remain safe and continue to be highly effective against severe disease. As a reminder, people aged 5 and older with moderately or severely weakened immune systems should get a third primary dose.

The rolling average daily rate of people testing positive for the virus in Los Angeles County was 0.9% as of Wednesday, a slight rise from 0.7% over the past two weeks.

Last week, the L.A. County Health Department reported an uptick in COVID infections attributed to the BA.2, an offshoot of the Omicron variant that spurred a winter surge in cases and hospitalizations.

According to the county, the BA.2 sub-variant accounted for 14.7% of all specially sequenced cases from the week ending March 5 — more than double the 6.4% rate from the previous week. Experts have suggested that BA.2 is at least 30% more contagious than the Omicron variant, which was already substantially more easily spread than the original COVID-19 virus.