COVID-19 Vaccination Appointments Available in L.A. County

Health officials said that COVID-19 vaccination appointments for this week are available in Los Angeles County for those who qualify.

For county residents seeking their first dose, “appointments from February 1 -7 are now available at http://VaccinateLACounty.com,” the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health tweeted. “Residents will be able to book their first and second dose appointments at the same time.

Officials said email confirmations are being sent out for those seeking a second-dose appointment.

“If you have not received an email yet, it will be sent soon,” the department tweeted. “We appreciate your patience.”

People currently eligible to get vaccinated in the county are health care workers, long-term care facility residents and those aged 65 and over.

Allocations of COVID-19 vaccine continue to lag behind demand, with the county expecting to receive roughly 188,000 doses next week. Many of those, however, will be needed to administer second shots to people who have already received the first dose of the two-dose regimen.

As of the end of last week, the county had received a total of 853,650 doses. It received an estimated 143,900 doses this week, pushing the total to nearly 1 million.

Vaccination appointments can be booked online at vaccinatelacounty.com

or by calling 833-530-0473 between 8 a.m. and 8:30 p.m.

Appointments at county sites were largely filled through the weekend.

The county’s chief science officer, Dr. Paul Simon, noted that the county opened about 25,000 vaccination appointment slots on Thursday, and they were filled within two hours. He sympathized with residents struggling to make appointments, expressing hope that the supply of vaccines will improve.

Simon said that most recent figures show a total of 719,138 doses of vaccine have been administered in the county, including nearly 595,000 first doses and more than 124,000 second doses of the two-dose regimen. While a large number, the total represents a fraction of the more than 2 million people currently eligible to get vaccinated in the county. Since each person requires two doses, that equates to more than 4 million doses.

Simon acknowledged concerns that have arisen in recent days regarding availability of the second doses, as residents struggle to make appointments.

Simon said anyone who gets their first dose at a county or city operated site should immediately be given an appointment for a second dose at the same location. Those who did not will be contacted be email

Meanwhile, outdoor dining returned to the county Friday after a two-month shutdown, but with a new restriction forcing restaurants to turn off or remove all televisions from customer seating areas — a clear effort to prevent gatherings of sports fans.

 The county’s revised Health Officer Order also reinstates previous restrictions on outdoor dining: requiring servers to wear masks and face shields, limiting restaurants to 50% of patio capacity, limiting tables to no more than six people from the same household and requiring tables to be at least eight feet apart.