LA County Meets COVID-19 Threshold for Yellow Tier

By LILY TINOCO | Reporter

Los Angeles County has met the threshold for the yellow tier—the least restrictive in the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy—Public Health reported on Tuesday afternoon, May 4.

A revised Health Officer Order was slated to go into effect on Thursday, May 6, allowing bars to begin providing indoor service at 25% capacity and other sectors to increase capacity limits.

The county continues to report low and stable case numbers and daily hospitalizations. For the first time since the start of the pandemic, hospitalizations have dropped below 400 in the county.

In January, Palisadian and medical director of urgent care at Providence Saint John’s Health Center Anita Gorwara told the Palisadian-Post the hospital was inundated with patients who had, been exposed to or wanted testing for COVID-19—back when a high number of cases strained health systems across the county. Her volume in urgent care at that time was 70 to 100 patients per day.

She shared that things are “much better now,” and that she is back to an average of 40 patients per day in urgent care.

“Our ability to maintain low numbers of cases, and correspondingly low numbers of hospitalizations and deaths, can be attributed in large part to the increased number of people vaccinated,” Director of Public Health Dr. Barbara Ferrer said in a statement.

As of Friday, April 30, over eight million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered to people across LA County. To date, 64.8% of Pacific Palisades and 62.9% of Palisades Highlands residents have gotten at least one shot, according to data from Public Health.

Pharmacies like Walgreens, CVS and Rite-Aid recently announced same-day appointments for vaccines. CVS, located at 864 Swarthmore Ave., had doses of the Pfizer vaccine in stock as the Post went to print Tuesday.

Vaccine appointments can also be made at Pharmaca, located at 15150 Sunset Blvd. The pharmacy had the Moderna and Janssen vaccine available as the Post went to print.

Individuals who are 16 and 17 years old can schedule appointments with guardian consent at any location that administers the Pfizer vaccine. All eligible Angelenos can schedule a COVID-19 vaccine appointment by using the state’s My Turn system.

“There will be a time in the not-distant future when many of our children will be eligible for the vaccine,” Ferrer concluded. “While we are all reminded daily about the powerful vaccines now available, for our children and others not yet vaccinated, masking is an essential tool in our effort to keep transmission rates low.”

As the Post went to print Tuesday, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 had reached 1,234,202 across the county when factoring in Long Beach and Pasadena, with 23,930 deaths. The county’s daily test positivity rate is 0.7%.

Pacific Palisades had reached 842 confirmed cases and 14 deaths Tuesday, with an additional 146 in Palisades Highlands and one death.

The COVID-19 vaccine is free for everyone, regardless of immigration status or if the person has health insurance. Residents of Pacific Palisades can visit myturn.ca.gov to make an appointment.