Long Beach readies its vaccination plan
As vaccines take center stage in the fight against the coronavirus, Long Beach officials convened a news conference on Thursday to announce their inoculation plan.
In the next few weeks, the city will receive 3,900 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, with 11,600 doses of the Moderna vaccine arriving in early January, Mayor Robert Garcia said.
Shots will go first into the arms of medical professionals, essential workers and high-risk senior citizens. Other Long Beach residents will probably be able to get the vaccine by late spring or early summer.
As one of two cities in Los Angeles County with its own public health department, Long Beach has an unusual degree of autonomy in setting coronavirus policies.
For the most part, the coastal city of 460,000 has followed the lead of county health officials as the pandemic has worsened. That has angered some residents and business owners.
Officials in some cities, including Beverly Hills and Lancaster, are exploring the idea of creating their own health departments after realizing they were powerless to dial back county restrictions such as those on outdoor dining.
Pasadena, the other city with a health department, kept its outdoor restaurant patios open until a stay-athome order from the state hit Southern California on Sunday.
But Long Beach shut down outdoor dining soon after L.A. County announced its latest order at the end of November, prompting a protest in the Belmont Shore dining district. For Garcia, caution has been underlined by hard experience — his mother and stepfather died of COVID-19 this summer. As of Thursday, the city had logged nearly 20,000 COVID-19 cases and nearly 300 deaths.
“The COVID crisis remains serious, and it remains the single biggest threat to life that we have faced in our city, and the biggest single threat that remains as we move forward,” Garcia said at Thursday’s news conference. “What brings us hope is we know that in 2021, we are going to defeat COVID-19.”
Only cities with their own health departments can legislate independently from county coronavirus regulations.
But all cities are generally free to impose stricter rules than the county or state. When it comes to mask wearing, some have done so.
Long Beach, like many cities, has generally relied on people to mask up voluntarily. Police officers and other officials sometimes gently suggest that maskless people put on face coverings, and compliance is usually good, said City Manager Tom Modica. The city employs about a dozen young people as “health ambassadors” to hand out masks and remind people about social distancing.