Vaccine eligibility expands to teens

NORWALK – All L.A. County residents ages 16 and older will be eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccination effective today, April 15.

As the overall number of coronavirus cases trends downward, the virus is still infecting people in Southern California.

On Wednesday, health officials announced 57 new deaths and 411 new infections.

There are currently 493 people hospialized with Covid-19 throughout L.A. County; of those, 26% are in the ICU.

Older residents have been hospitalized at higher rates than younger residents at all stages of the pandemic, with the highest rates among residents above 80 years of age.

With the decrease of hospitalization rates for people of all ages, and the large number of older people who are now vaccinated, the rate of hospitalizations for those over 80 years old has dropped by 96%.

Underlying conditions are strongly associated with deaths due to Covid-19. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 85% of people who died as a result of Covid-19 infection had an underlying condition.

The most common condition was high blood pressure or hypertension, which was an underlying condition for 52% of those who died.

Forty-one percent of those who died had diabetes, 26% had cardiovascular disease other than hypertension, 21% had neurologic disease, and 16% had chronic renal disease.

Of the 57 new deaths reported Wednesday, 26 people that passed away were over the age of 80, 16 people who died were between the ages of 65 and 79, 10 people who died were between the ages of 50 and 64, and three people who died were between the ages of 30 and 49.

Two deaths were reported by the City of Long Beach.

To date, about 1.5 million LA County residents between 16 and 49 have received at least one dose of the vaccine, which means 3.5 million residents in this group still need to be vaccinated.