Donaciano Estrada, 68, and his wife Rosari, 65, waited less than an hour this Thursday to receive the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19.
In the van driven by their daughter Mary, the couple entered the Inglewood Forum, on Kareem Street, and followed a huge row of cars the passengers had made an appointment to be
immunized.
“I want to be healthy,” Donaciano Estrada told L’Opinió when explaining why he decided to receive the dose. “I don’t want to get sick.”
The Estrada couple, originally from Zacatecas, Mexico, were registered by their daughter on the website
VaccinateLACounty.com. The request for an appointment can also be made in Spanish.
“I love my parents and that’s why I took the time to get them vaccinated,” said Maria Estrada, who works for a medical office.
The only downside was that Mrs. Rosario did not know where they were taking her. Her family explained that she did not want to be vaccinated, after hearing that some people who received the injection had side effects.
“She’s nervous, so when we got to the vaccination site she had no choice but to resign,” her husband said.
After the vaccine and a 15-minute wait inside his vehicle, the family withdrew. On February 11 they will return for the second dose.
Last Tuesday, the first day of mass vaccination at five centers such as Inglewood Forum, Dodgers Stadium, Pomona Fairplex, County Office of Education Downey Education Center and Cal State Northridge (CSUN), a a total of 8,302 people received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“The next day we vaccinated 25% more people in the five centers,” said Jesús Ruiz, spokesman for The Forum. “We estimate to immunize a maximum of 4,000 people every day, in each vaccination center” mentioned above.
Increased efforts for immunization arose as a result of the signing of an executive order by Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solís, which claims that vaccines against COVID-19 are available to residents 65 years of age or older beginning January 21st.
“Over the past few weeks, Los Angeles County has been administering the vaccine to front-line health care workers so they can stay safe while doing the important job of saving lives … [También] to residents and staff in specialized nursing centers and long-term care facilities, ”Solís stated.
The launch of the vaccine has been a titanic task, especially during an unprecedented increase in cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to skyrocket.
The state opened eligibility to vaccinate people 65 and older earlier this month, but Los Angeles County took a few more days to organize distribution to that group.
“While the vaccine wasn’t coming, I covered my face with the mouthpiece wherever I went … And when my kids wanted to see us, we only got about seven in the house,” Donaciano Estrada said. “We had to take care of ourselves and thank God, no one got sick.”
Millions of vaccines
According to health officials, Los Angeles County needs more than 4 million doses to provide the two-dose vaccine protocol to all health workers, who are about 800,000 people, along with 1.3 millions of residents aged 65 and over.
However, so far the county has received only 853,650 doses. Once the 2.2 million residents are vaccinated on the current priority list, which includes health workers and residents of long-term intensive care homes, another eight million residents will be missing, each of whom would need two doses of vaccines.
“I already wanted to be vaccinated. I talked to my Aseguranza and they told me I should sign up on a waiting list,” said Monterey Park resident 83-year-old Socors Batanero.
“I get vaccinated at a CVS pharmacy and maybe wait until March, in my head I’m still closed … In these places that opened in the county I would not be encouraged to go, they are too withdrawn and I’m scared drive up there “.
According to estimates by Dr. Seira Kurian, director of the Medical Affairs Division of the
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health will next week receive 143,900 doses, but 106,000 of them — more than 70 percent — will be used as second doses for health care workers and others.
First of all, if necessary, Mrs. Rosario Estrada says that she already lost her fear of the first injection and is ready for the second picket.
“Nothing hurts the needle; the tension she was carrying is stronger,” her husband Don Donaciano said.
“I think she was impressed because she left on an empty stomach … I didn’t, I did eat a taco of mashed potatoes with tomato and onion.”