- Los Angeles county reported no new COVID-19 deaths for the second day in a row on Monday.
- The last time the county reported no new deaths twice in a row was in March 2020.
- COVID-19 cases and deaths in LA county have slowly been decreasing as vaccine efforts ramp up.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
Los Angeles County reported no new COVID-19 deaths for the second day in a row, county health officials announced Monday.
This is the first time the nation’s most populous county had reported no additional deaths from COVID-19 for two consecutive days since March 18, 2020, according to county data. County health officials said in a statement that the number of cases and deaths could be impacted by reporting delays.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in LA County have slowly been decreasing as vaccine efforts ramp up in the county and in the state of California as a whole. As of April 30, the county has administered more than 8 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine — 4,988,031 were first doses and 3,045,115 were second doses, according to a press release.
“With ample supply, our efforts are now focused on making it as easy as possible for everyone 16 and older to get their vaccine,” the release read.
Residents ages 16 and older became eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine in mid-April. In late March, Pfizer requested authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for use in adolescents ages 12-15 after clinical trial data suggested their vaccine was highly effective in a trial of more than 2,000 adolescents. Data also suggested the vaccine was “well tolerated” among those ages 12 to 15.
The FDA is set to authorize the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for those ages 12-15 by next week, The New York Times reported, though the agency has yet to confirm its authorization plan.
Ahead of the FDA authorization, LA County public health officials are “urging providers to consider expanding the range of vaccines they are delivering to include Pfizer,” according to the LA County press release.
“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,” Barbara Ferrer, LA County public health director, said in a statement. “There will be a time in the not-distant future when many of our children will be eligible for the vaccine.”
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