More Than 70% of Pasadena Seniors Vaccinated Against COVID-19

As of Wednesday, more than 70% of Pasadena residents 65 and older received COVID-19 vaccinations after a two-week delay of new vaccine shipments came to an end with a fresh delivery on Tuesday, officials said.

A total of 29,566 Pasadenans, amounting to 21% of the city’s population of 141,000, have received one dose of two-dose vaccine regimens, according to city data. Another 14,827 have received both.

Pasadena received a shipment of vaccines Tuesday for the first time in about two weeks after severe storms across the nation stifled shipping, city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said.

Public health officials were optimistic that they could complete vaccinating seniors and move onto the next eligible groups, including teachers, daycare workers, food workers, agricultural workers, and emergency workers within the next few weeks, she said.

Emergency responders are also included in the next round of eligibility under state guidelines, but the majority of Pasadena firefighters have already received both doses, and most police officers have already received at least one dose, Derderian said.

The small staff at the city’s Citizen Service Center has been busy making “thousands of thousands” of phone calls in an effort to reach out to all local seniors and offer assistance in getting vaccinated, she said.

“We’re not waiting for people to call us,” Derderian said.

City officials are able to assist seniors with the online process of booking appointments and help to coordinate vaccinations through community partners, such as Huntington Hospital, she said.

The Pasadena Public Health Department reported 20 new COVID-19 infections and 2 additional fatalities on Wednesday.

Since the start of the pandemic nearly a year ago, the city has recorded 10,825 total infections and 311 deaths.

One of the deaths was that of a long-term care facility resident who died some time earlier, but was only just added to city data, Derderian said. The other death was that of a person in their mid-60s who lived in the general community.

Over the prior week, an average of 16.3 new infections were detected daily, according to city data. The figure represented the lowest rate reported in Pasadena in two-and-a-half months.

The number of COVID-19 patients being treated at Huntington Hospital also continued a steady decline, with 54 patients being treated for the virus on Wednesday, according to hospital data. Eight of the patients were being treated in intensive care units.

The COVID-19 death toll in Los Angeles County tragically spiked upward Wednesday after a review of death certificates dating back to early December confirmed 806 more fatalities that can be attributed to the virus, punctuating the deadly toll of the winter surge in cases.

Meanwhile, more cases of a COVID-19 variant first discovered in the United Kingdom have been detected in the county, raising the overall total to 18. The new cases include two that were confirmed as part of a four-case outbreak at USC, with the other two patients also suspected of having the U.K. variant but are awaiting lab confirmation.

“The individuals are doing well and they are in isolation. Close contacts have been identified, notified and they’re quarantining,” said county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said.

Ferrer said no cases of a South African variant have yet been detected in the county. But she said a California variant that UC San Francisco researchers say has become the dominant strain statewide is believed to have a wide presence in Los Angeles County.

Ferrer said she has not fully reviewed the UCSF research, but said, “We can confirm that between 40 and 50% of the samples that we sequenced in the public health lab since December contain what is known as the (California) mutation of interest.” The strain is referred to as 20C/L452R.

UCSF researchers suggested that current vaccines could be less effective against the California variant, and they fear it could potentially combine with the U.K. variant to take on an even more virulent form.

As of Wednesday, the county’s death toll from COVID-19 stood at 20,987, with 136 new fatalities reported. But the death toll now includes another 806 deaths that occurred in the county as early as the beginning of December that have just been listed as COVID fatalities.

“The majority of these deaths occurred during the surge between Dec. 3, 2020, and Feb. 3, 2021,” Ferrer said. “This was a period as you all know when very many deaths occurred across the county and not all of them were reported to Public Health because of the volume of records.

“Public Health identifies COVID-associated deaths primarily by submission of what’s called a daily report form that we get from health care providers,” she said. “Additionally, we do use vital records to identify deaths that are related to COVID-19 by reviewing the cause of death listed on the death certificates, and then we link deaths on the death certificates to those that are listed on the report forms. During the surge, death certificate linkage and reviews were often delayed due to the high volume of death report forms.”

Ferrer on Wednesday also reported another 2,157 confirmed cases of COVID-19, raising the overall total since the pandemic began to 1,185,457.

She noted a continuing decrease in the average daily number of new cases, which is now hovering around 1,300 — a dramatic drop from early January but still slightly above the 1,200 daily average seen in early November, before the winter surge began.

“We’ve not yet seen any indication that Super Bowl weekend led to increases in cases, but we still need to be on the watch for these increases over the next week or two, and they can be associated both [with] the Super Bowl and with the Presidents Day holiday weekend,” Ferrer said.

The three-day average number of people hospitalized due to COVID in the county has fallen to 2,243, Ferrer said, down dramatically from 8,000 in early January.

The California Department of Public Health reported 5,303 new cases of COVID-19 and 314 new deaths, bringing the state’s totals to 3,455,361 infections and 49,877 fatalities.

The statewide average positivity rate over the prior week dehad declined to 3.1%, while the 14-day rate dipped to 3.2%, according to the CDPH.

As of Wednesday, L.A. County accounted for 34% of California’s COVID-19 infections and 42% of the state’s deaths.