The once-vast number of daily inoculations of the COVID-19 vaccine is in steep decline in Long Beach, according to city data. On April 15, the city administered a high of 5,563 first doses; on May 1 the number dropped to 275 first doses.
Over 220,000 people have been vaccinated in a city of more than 400,000 residents.
There was no greater demand than when the vaccine first became available to the public in January, officials said. The city was anticipating a dip in vaccination demand as more residents got the jab, but the slowdown paints a picture of the work health officials still have to do as more COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, businesses open to more customers and variants of the virus continue to develop.
Long Beach Health and Human Services Director Kelly Colopy said the city is trying to find new ways to lure younger residents to get the vaccine. Over 96% of seniors are vaccinated with at least one shot, Colopy said, but residents age 21 through 39 have become the new target group as they are more reluctant to schedule an appointment, let alone take a vaccine.
To entice more people to get a shot, Long Beach announced on Tuesday that people who take their first dose of the vaccine would be given free Aquarium of the Pacific tickets. Freebies and handouts in exchange for getting a vaccine is a tactic officials across the country are taking up in a nationwide push to get more people to get a vaccine. For example, New York health officials are offering a slate of free admissions to the city’s attractions like the zoo, aquarium and botanical gardens.
The reason for the hesitancy from some residents varies, but Colopy said young people are less fearful of the virus given their age and health status or simply because it’s not convenient.
This week, the city will began partnering with LBUSD to host clinics at or near schools to make it easier for busy parents, as well as those 16 and older, to get their vaccine, Long Beach spokeswoman Jennifer Rice Epstein said. College campuses have also installed vaccination clinics on their campuses. Cal State Long Beach’s Walter Pyramid gym is now a vaccination clinic for registered students and faculty.
Vaccine hesitancy is becoming the next big challenge for the city, Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said during a press conference last week.
“We can’t end up in a situation where 40% of the population is not vaccinated,” Garcia said. “This will keep us in a loop of not beating this thing, and we’ve got to do better.”
The county has also experienced a drop in vaccinations at its clinics as the demand for the vaccine seems to be declining regionally. Barbara Ferrer, the county’s public health director, said the downward trend was “very worrisome” and that clinics reported fewer people arriving for their vaccine appointments.
Health officials are racing against the clock as new COVID-19 variants continue to emerge in places such as India where a second wave of the virus has overwhelmed the country’s health system.
“We are in a race against COVID-19 variants,” Epstein said. “Being vaccinated greatly diminishes your ability to get and transmit COVID-19. By stopping COVID-19 transmission, we stop variants.”
Who’s not getting vaccinated
In Long Beach, more affluent neighborhoods to the east have had higher rates of vaccinations compared to lower-income communities, according to city data. Health officials have stated throughout their vaccination campaigns that language and cultural barriers as well as a historical mistrust of the government has proven to be a challenge when trying to vaccinate vulnerable populations.
“Lower vaccination rates can be due to a multitude of factors including historical mistrust of government or vaccine hesitancy among other factors,” Epstein wrote in an email. “Our outreach efforts have been successful; the majority of those being vaccinated at our community clinics are people of color. We continue to do everything we can to increase vaccinations and reduce barriers, including logistical barriers, to getting a vaccine.”
The city has implemented mobile vaccine clinics to West, North and Central Long Beach in an effort to inoculate hard to reach places. However, the 90813 ZIP code in Central Long Beach shows that only 31.7% of the population has been vaccinated while the 90808 ZIP code near Lakewood has had 56.3% of its population vaccinated.
Mary Simmons, board member for the AOC7 community group in Central Long Beach, said its door-to-door outreach with neighbors has been “going really well.”
The community group focused on food distribution at the start of the pandemic. With the introduction of the vaccines, these groups have had to become pseudo experts on them.
Though Simmons says the outreach has been positive, the group has encountered instances of vaccine hesitancy among members of the community. For example, Simmons said her sons, who are in their 40s, said they’re just waiting for herd immunity to kick in—a situation where the majority of the community is immune to a virus thus creating a barrier from more infections.
By comparison, Simmons said older residents were more readily available to schedule a vaccine appointment.
Simmons added that when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for a pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine distribution to investigate reports of rare blood clots, it made some people anxious about the vaccines. Even now that Johnson & Johnson was cleared to continue, the downward trend never recovered, the New York Times reported.
Despite the hesitancy, Simmons said people are educated on their vaccine choices and are willing to schedule appointments.
Much of the groundwork to educate residents on the vaccines will have to continue to be done through community-based nonprofit groups who know their neighbors well and can speak their native languages.
“They trust us because we are not the health department,” Simmons said. “We can communicate with them as someone who looks like them.”