While COVID-19 numbers continue trending downward in Los Angeles County, health officials again are preaching adherence to infection-control measures such as mask wearing and social distancing to avoid another surge in cases.
Last weekend, Jonatan Cvetko drove to a fire station in South L.A. and got vaccinated.
He’s not a senior citizen who is at particularly high risk of dying from COVID-19. Nor does he work at a hospital, spending his days and nights tending to critically ill patients on ventilators.
He does, however, own a cannabis shop. And as of last week, that alone makes Cvetko eligible to get his first dose right now ahead of most teachers and cops in Los Angeles County, not to mention bus drivers and grocery store clerks. All he had to do was make an appointment online and bring along his work badge and paystub to show those on staff at the fire station just in case.
More than 200 additional COVID-19 deaths were announced in Los Angeles County today as the winter surge continued to claim lives, but case numbers continued to decline and the population of virus patients in hospitals dipped below 4,000.