For every non-LA resident getting a shot in LA, there's likely an LA resident getting one somewhere else. What goes around comes around. Silliness.

Well, it's still much harder to find a vaccine in the city than outside the city, even with the restrictions. Part of it may indeed be that more of the doses are gobbled up by institutions. I got vaccinated through work at UChicago, which is not checking that we're Chicago residents (though most of us are).

the thing with lokum aka turkish delight is you have to get it fresh and the only way to do that is in turkey. it's a different treat altogether when its fresh. :tup:

Chicago is allocated a certain amount of vaccines from the Federal government based on population. 1/3 of Chicago's vaccines so far have gone to non residents of Chicago.

It is near impossible to get a vaccine in Chicago. I would have to go to the suburbs and rent a car I guess. A large percentage of Chicagoans don't own a car. Lakeview where I live is 60%.

With regards to vaccine hesitancy. I'll be the get one the second I can. But I do admit I'm not surprised there is so much vaccine hesitancy in the US. We were lied to about everything last year.

I think you're misinterpreting the quote in the article. At least the way *I* interpret it, "The city of Los Angeles opened vaccine appointments to everyone 16 and older on Saturday. People who are seeking shots at city-run vaccination sites must provide valid identification and be a resident of Los Angeles County."

But, any resident of any county can get their vaccinations wherever else they can get them. On April 1st, when California opened up vaccines to residents 50 and older, when I made appointments for myself and my partner online through CVS (not an LA City-run vaccination site), we couldn't choose which CVS was available, each time I refreshed, using our ZIP code and my parents' ZIP code, different CVS locations popped up, or none popped up. I had to keep refreshing, and you can only book one person at a time. So, for my partner, he ended up getting an appointment at a CVS in Monterey Park (in the SGV), and I ended up getting an appointment at a CVS in Buena Park, which is in northern Orange County. We ended up both skipping work and making a day of it, because his appointment was before noon, and mine was around dinnertime. So yes, even though I'm an LA County resident, the CVS I went to for my vaccine was in Orange County. Our appointments for the 1st shot were last Monday, and we'll both get our 2nd doses on May 4th, and at the same separate CVS locations.

Incidentally, there's currently a federally-run vaccination site on the campus of Cal State LA.

Oh totally. Or, if it's homemade, and you eat it within a number of days. Obviously, it's not the same when mass-produced by the British arm of Cadbury. :yuck: :haha:

If you already qualify (via employment, age or medical condition), I recommend you set up autorefresh on the Chicago zocdoc site. That's how I snagged an appointment for my wife at Rush.

I've also heard that there's a vaccination site in Gary that is easy to find appointments for. Unfortunately it's 2.5 miles away from the Gary South Shore Line stop, but if you have a bike it might be a reasonable option (commuter rail is pretty safe since the conductors do an alright job of enforcing mask usage, although I don't know if that's the case on the SSL since it's Indiana...)

Thanks for the info! But I don't qualify for the conditions - work, age, and no health conditions, set in Chicago until April 19. But the rest of Cook county is open and so is the rest of the state as of today. The reason Chicago isn't now is because of the vaccine allotment given to Chicago and it being all used up.

What knucklehead came up with these stupid allotments?

The largest, most densely populated city in the state by an order of magnitude? What the hell, let's short 'em.

Meanwhile, if you're willing to drive down to effing effingham, they apparently have enough surplus vax to throw it around like tootsie rolls at a parade.

The allotments are generally to the state, which is supposed to further distribute them, with a small amount being shipped directly to federally run vaccination sites. As of today, Illinois has injected "only" 80.9% of its allotted doses (which is actually about average for the states): Source = https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/c...-distribution/

In CA, those federally run vaccination sites are in the major urban areas--LA and the Bay Area. I don't know about Chicago but I'd bet there is or has been one there.

If Chicago is out of vaccine while other parts of the state are not, target the blame at Springfield (that's the state capital as I best recall). Somewhere in Illinois is almost 20% of the state's allotted doses. But they may be being reserved as second doses for people who've already received the first dose. Unlike the UK, for example, which decided back in December to give as many people as possible one dose before cycling back with second doses even if that means those second doses will come months after the first, in the US we are trying to give second doses on the same schedule as the manufacturers tested them and got them approved (a 3-week interval for Pfizer, 4 weeks for Moderna). As a result, while the UK has given one dose to 48.2% of its people, only 11.5% have gotten the second dose and are therefore considered "fully vaccinated" while in the US 36.4% have gotten at least 1 dose but 22.3% are considered "fully vaccinated" because they've also gotten the second dose (same source as above = Bloomberg).

PS: I bet the stories you hear about surplus vaccine in this or that far flung part of the state are largely fiction though there's bound to be some unevenness in the availability. Again, in CA there's an intentional effort by the state to target extra vaccine to the lowest income zip codes in the state which meant the Bay Area didn't get as much as places in the Central Valley or the poorer stretches of Southern California and that caused some hard feelings. But it's all in what you consider fairness. Generally, the wealthier areas are finding a way to get vaccinated in higher percentages anyway.

And finally, we are being assured by the feds (Biden Administration) that in another month or so there'll be plenty of vaccine everywhere. Then according to Tony Blanken, we'll be handing it out to Mexico and Canada (if they still need it).

Please recall, if I may delicately mention it without talking politics, that during the previous administration there was a constant refrain that what we needed was federal coordination. That in fact is what we have over the vaccine supply, at least as far as how much goes to each state, and what we've always had.

I think over the last year people have simplified every single situation.

I keep pointing this out because it is important:

Arkansas currently has the lowest amount of cases per 100k yet has pretty much been open since May and has had zero restrictions in the last month to include no mask mandate. Schools are even dropping mask mandates.

Mitigations are not some Golden Bullet that stops this.

As of this morning, Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi have the least amount of cases per 100k ( 6, 6, 7 respectively).

Michigan, New Jersey, and Minnesota have the most (73, 42, 42).

The whole "mitigations are the issue!" is not true. It simply isn't. Real-world data is showing that.

Top three states fully vaccinated: New Mexico, South Dakota, Alaska (29%, 28, 27).

Lowest fully-vaccinated states: Georgia, Alabama, Utah (19%, 21, 22).


Alabama certainly bucks conventional wisdom when it comes to Covid; very lower percentage of people vaccinated, very little mitigations (they may be lifted right now but that wouldn't show up in the numbers yet) and yet very few cases.

That's because "cases" are EXTREMELY dependent on how much a given state is testing.

covid deaths give a much clearer picture of the extent of an outbreak in a given area.



Alabama doesn't test. It has the 4th LOWEST testing rate in the nation.

Yet it has is the 10th HIGHEST covid death rate in the nation.



If you don't test your population, you're not gonna find much covid.

but if the people are still dying at higher than average rates, then you've got a lot of covid going around,

it just ain't being discovered at the same rate it is in other places that are all-in on testing.

Over the last 7 days Alabama is at #19 for deaths.

Its also #24 for hospitalizations over the last 28 days.

Nobody should be using Alabama's COVID response as a standard for anything. It has been an absolute joke.

Alabama currently has the 10th highest COVID mortality rate per capita of any state, but this is based on deaths that the state itself reports as COVID. If Alabama reported COVID deaths like New York, it would have double the number of deaths from COVID, and the state's COVID per capita rate would be almost double New York's. New York currently has the second highest COVID fatalities per capita in the country.

Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi are also among the least dense states and literally at the bottom in terms of visitors. So wayyyy less COVID coming in (than say CA or NY) and less COVID being spread due to being rural. Essentially, they function as islands, so not surprising they might have cases/deaths as low as say Hawaii or Alaska.

Actually, in spite of that Arkansas and Alabama are 10th and 13th in terms of most cases per capita. And 10th and 16th in terms of deaths per capita. Mississippi is 5th. Hawaii is 50th and 50th, respectively. So despite being functional "islands", they're not doing so hot.

Yeah, we shouldn't be talking about population density in terms of COVID susceptibility anymore. That should've never been brought into the conversation. It was extremely damaging in how people perceived the threat.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Are herd immunity and the California coronavirus variant preventing a West Coast spring surge?

By RONG-GONG LIN IISTAFF WRITER
APRIL 12, 2021 UPDATED 2:18 PM PT

With coronavirus cases and related hospitalizations climbing nationwide, is California also headed for a fourth wave in the COVID-19 pandemic?

Coronavirus cases have risen in the Midwest, New England and the New York area, and there’s concern that Los Angeles County could be — as it has been in the past — only a few weeks behind trends coming out of New York. In the last week, average daily coronavirus cases nationally are up 3% over the previous week and daily COVID-19 hospital admissions are up 7%.

But so far, California remains in good shape, relatively speaking. California had one of the lowest average daily coronavirus case rates in the nation over the most recent seven-day period, while Michigan’s case rate — the worst in the nation — was 12 times higher than California’s, placing growing strain on hospitals there.

One factor that may be helping California — for reasons not fully understood — is the presence of the California variant. The California variant here might be helping to keep a lid on the U.K. variant, which is believed to be more transmissible than the conventional strains of the coronavirus and likely results in more severe illness and, as a result, a greater chance of death.

Here are some reasons why Michigan might be doing so badly while California — so far — seems to be doing far better.

The U.K. strain is dominating the Midwest outbreak

Michigan’s current wave has become nearly as intense as at the height of the state’s winter surge, said Dr. George Rutherford, a UC San Francisco epidemiologist, at a recent campus forum. Michigan’s recent wave was spurred on by youth athletic events, including large outbreaks involving hockey teams, Rutherford said. Minnesota is also seeing a cluster of new cases.

A big factor in the Midwest surge is the presence of the U.K. variant, which now accounts for about 70% of Michigan’s and Minnesota’s new coronavirus cases, Rutherford said. Michigan is now seeing its hospitals under pressure from surges of patients, and some hospitals in the state are canceling nonemergency procedures and enacting pandemic surge plans, the Detroit Free Press reported.

One bright side, however, is that the cluster in New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Connecticut seems to be “starting to turn the corner a little bit,” Rutherford said.

An outstanding question is whether the surge in COVID-19 in the neighboring Canadian province of Ontario is affecting the surge in cases in the Midwest and Northeast, Rutherford said. “The borders are closed, [so] I’m not quite sure what that all means. But it’s something to be cognizant of,” Rutherford said.

Doctors in Ontario have started to plead with government officials to send more intensive care unit nurses to the Toronto area “to avoid a triage situation,” the Toronto Star reported Saturday.

The California variant may be keeping the U.K. strain under control

In California, the U.K. variant now probably accounts for 40% of new coronavirus cases, Rutherford said, but unlike in Michigan, “it hasn’t driven the overall epidemic curve.”

Part of the reason for that is that the California variant may be dominating the U.K. variant in the state. Of virus samples that have been genomically sequenced cumulatively, more than 12,000 cases of the California variant — also known as the West Coast variant (B.1.427/B.1.429) — have been identified in California, compared with 980 of the U.K. variant (B.1.1.7).

The California variant is believed to be 20% more transmissible than the conventional coronavirus strains, but the U.K. variant is thought to be 50% more transmissible and more likely to cause worse illness.

Some experts have said they would presume that the U.K. variant would crowd out the California variant. But Rutherford said, somewhat counterintuitively, that the California variant may be somehow keeping the U.K. variant at bay.

Rutherford said he couldn’t fully explain it, but, “for whatever reason, they seem to be pushing it out of the way.” An upcoming study of coronavirus cases identified in San Francisco’s Mission District is expected to report almost no cases of the U.K. variant.

It’s possible that California will eventually be dominated by the U.K. variant, Rutherford said. “But for right now, we have way more of the [California variant],” he said.

If you had to choose between the California variant and U.K. variant being more dominant, the California variant is preferable, because it’s relatively less transmissible and deadly than the U.K. variant.

“If it was the U.K. variant [that was dominating California], we’d be in worse shape,” said Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the UC San Francisco Department of Medicine, at the campus forum.

Relatively high rates of immunity may be helping California

The autumn-and-winter surge in California tore through many lower-income and heavily Latino communities, leaving behind a high death toll. These communities were particularly hit hard because many residents live in crowded homes and have jobs requiring them to leave home, exposing them to a higher risk of infection.

The intensity of the autumn-and-winter wave, however, has resulted in a large number of survivors who now have protection against coronavirus infections and COVID-19.

Officials estimate about 38% of L.A. County residents have been infected with the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic. And Rutherford said he suspects there are parts of L.A., such as in Boyle Heights and South L.A., in which half of residents have been infected.

Rutherford said it’s possible that California could reach something approaching herd immunity by June 15.

Michigan restrictions are not mandatory

So far, Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has declined to impose new mandatory restrictions to cope with the recent surge. On Friday, Whitmer called for a voluntary two-week suspension of indoor restaurant dining, youth sports and in-person high school classes, deciding against mandatory orders even though some doctors say they’re needed.

“No one wants another lockdown, but we need it,” tweeted Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician and author of “What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City.” Hanna-Attisha won the Freedom of Expression Courage Award for her efforts to expose the dangerous levels of lead in the water in Flint, Mich.

On Monday, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said the answer to Michigan’s “extraordinary number of cases” was “really close things down, to go back to our basics, to go back to where we were last spring, last summer, and to shut things down, to flatten the curve, to decrease contact with one another.”

Walensky said the solution did not involve redirecting vaccine doses from other states to Michigan. Even if additional doses went into arms today, the effect would not be seen for two to six weeks. “If we tried to vaccinate our way out of what is happening in Michigan,” Walensky said, “we would be disappointed that it took so long for the vaccine to … actually have the impact.”

Following the autumn-and-winter surge, indoor restaurant dining in Michigan resumed on Feb. 1; L.A. County resumed indoor restaurant dining much later, allowing operations to reopen March 15.

National experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious diseases expert, have long been warning against states reopening businesses too quickly following the winter surge, fearing that a speedy reopening would result in a backsliding into another surge.

At the end of February, Fauci warned against moves by states to reopen too quickly. On CNN, Fauci noted that in past periods of the pandemic, “when we started to pull back prematurely, we saw the rebound. We definitely don’t want that to happen.”

What could cause problems in California?

Problems that could delay the end of the pandemic in California include the introduction of a new variant in California or the discovery of a problem with a vaccine that could undermine confidence in the shots, Rutherford said.

The vaccines now approved in the U.S. have proved themselves to be very effective and very safe, experts say. And the variants that pose a relatively higher risk of being resistant to vaccines — the South African and Brazilian variants — have yet to establish a firm hold in the U.S.

“The numbers of states with more than a few handful of cases of those is really vanishingly small,” Rutherford said. “I really haven’t seen it yet that makes me worry.”

Link: https://www.latimes.com/california/s...-herd-immunity

Yes and no. Population density itself is not really a factor, but reliance on public transportation, which is linked to population density, certainly is.

Expensive real estate in cities like NYC and London is probably a factor as well. For example indoor dining is inherently more problematic because most restaurants are cramped with lots of tables close together, and more people are likely to live in shared housing with roommates.

But aren't restaurants in large cities mandated to have social distancing and capacity limits like anywhere else?