The Brief

Updated COVID shots will be “widely available” in Los Angeles County by the middle of next week, public health officials said Thursday.

“There will be a gradual rollout to get vaccines on the ground, and it will take some time to get scheduling systems set up," said Janina Morrison, the county's chief physician of clinical services for public health. “Pharmacies and health care providers will be receiving orders directly from the manufacturers and will let their patients and customers know about availability.”

L.A. County health officials are urging people to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Cases and hospitalizations are continuing to creep up nationally and the threat of other respiratory viruses, including flu and RSV, loom this fall. For the first time, vaccines are available against all three.

“We know lots and lots of people who are vaccinated and then got infected,” said L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. “That doesn’t change our reality that both that natural immunity you get from being infected and the vaccines themselves, that protection is waning over time. Study after study after study says that it wanes over time. We need to get ourselves boosted, we can’t afford to take the risk of getting infected.”

Ferrer said local cases have “somewhat plateaued,” but are still relatively high, having doubled in the past month.

“We’re not in a place where there are alarming increases in cases or wastewater testing,” she said.

Manufacturers say the tweaked mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer are effective against EG.5, the COVID strain that is currently dominant in the United States, as well as other emerging variants.

It is completely safe for people to get a flu shot and a COVID shot on the same day, usually one in each arm, according to Ferrer.

“Be prepared for an earlier than usual flu season,” she said. “The east and south are seeing a spike, so go ahead and make your flu shot appointment so you’re prepared.”

Hospitalizations decreased a small amount in L.A. County, but it’s not clear if that trend will hold.

Will insurance cover the COVID shot?

Under the Affordable Care Act, insurance plans are covering the full cost of vaccines, without co-pays. So insured people will be able to get the updated COVID vaccine at their doctor’s offices or pharmacies at no cost. The same applies to Medicare beneficiaries.

On Oct. 1, the COVID vaccine will be covered for everyone on Medicaid — Medi-Cal in California — based on a law passed last year in Congress. For people who are uninsured or underinsured, the Biden administration launched the Bridge Access Program, which will make the vaccine available this season at no cost.

The new government program allows the CDC to purchase and distribute COVID vaccines and allocate them through its network of state and local health departments. Vaccines for federally qualified health centers as well as certain pharmacy chains will be supported through both government and manufacturer-supplied resources.

But the Bridge Access Program is temporary. According to the CDC’s website, no-cost vaccines will be available until the end of 2024.

Bridge Access providers will be added this week to the Vaccines.gov website, which can help people find locations to get the free vaccines.

Children from low-income families will be able to get free vaccines through the CDC’s Vaccines for Children program.

When will the updated COVID shot be available? 

This is the first time COVID shots will be provided through the commercial market. In order to get it covered by your health insurance, you must stay in-network. If you get the shot from a provider out of your insurance network, there may be a cost.

Kaiser Permenente, the largest insurer in the state, told LAist that the “initial supply of the updated vaccines may be limited” and that it would primarily administer the Pfizer vaccine when it’s available.

“Kaiser Permanente will begin administering the updated COVID vaccines according to the CDC’s clinical guidance as soon as we have updated our systems and processes to reflect that guidance and when supply becomes available,” the company said.

Some CVS and Walgreens pharmacies are already offering the shots, and both company’s websites say more locations and vaccine appointments will be added as inventory increases.

For young children 6 months to 6 years old, it’s best to get them vaccinated at their pediatrician’s office. Many chain pharmacies won’t vaccinate young children, so pay attention when you’re making appointments to the age restrictions.

Geffen Playhouse Artistic Director Tarell Alvin McCraney won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the movie Moonlight, but don't expect to see him at this year's Oscars ceremony.

"I tend to stay away from the awards show," McCraney said. " I think I might have PTSD."

McCraney is referring to the viral moment from the 2017 Oscars ceremony, where La La Land was mistakenly announced as the Best Picture winner instead of Moonlight.

McCraney isn't new to theater. In fact, you could consider it his original home before his play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue launched him into the Hollywood spotlight. But when the Geffen Playhouse asked him to be their artistic director two years ago, it called him back to the stage in a different way. Tapping a screenwriter for the position was a first for the theater, but McCraney said the roles actually overlap in more ways than one.

 "The job of the screenwriter most times is to make sure that everybody is understanding where the story is going and what the 'action' of the piece is," McCraney said. "So it's not that much different than being an artistic director.  My job here is to set the artistic goal for the organization. [To] point out its virtues and pitfalls, the dangers and the obstacles, and then move collectively as a single storyteller towards that goal."

McCraney said one of the great things about living in Los Angeles is its nuanced racial and ethnic communities, and he rides his bike around the city to better experience them.

"The landscape is constantly shifting and changing," McCraney said. "For example, Westwood has drastically changed over the past 15 years and will change irrevocably with the coming of the new train station down on Wilshire. It will change again with LA28 happening."

Just like Los Angeles, the Geffen Playhouse has had multiple transformations over its more than 30 year existence. Their world premier show, Silvia Silvia Silvia, is playing until March 8. Dragon Mama, starring Sarah Porkalob, begins March 4.

"Sarah is an incredible singer and writer and has created this incredible arc through a family that is both powerful and witty, but also deeply nuanced," McCraney said. "She's sharing that family with us, and family is our first community. They are the people we learn the most from. We learn unconditional love. We learn collective bargaining. Investigating family, investigating why we stay together and how we stay together through dire circumstances is a critical investigation for us right now."

When it comes to this year's Oscars ceremony, McCraney said he's rooting for all the nominees.

"It's been an incredible season," he said. "But Sinners is an incredible film that I've seen three or four times, so I'm really excited to see how it does."

The Long Beach Community College District has agreed to pay $18 million to more than 1,450 part-time professors to settle a class-action lawsuit that alleged they were forced to work unpaid hours outside the classroom, grading papers and tests, meeting with students, preparing lessons and other duties.

The settlement, which the district board quietly approved last month, still needs the judge overseeing the case to sign off. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for July 1 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. It’s likely that Judge Stuart Rice will approve the deal. Last year, he ruled that the part-timers, commonly called adjuncts, were entitled to the pay they sought, writing he found “a myriad of problems” with the district’s claims that its practices did not violate state law.

The case has made “a major impact throughout the state already,” as some districts have begun negotiating contract terms to give adjuncts what they’ve long sought — pay for time they spend prepping and grading, not just for class time, said the plaintiffs’ lawyer Eileen B. Goldsmith, in an interview. (EdSource published an investigative series in the issue, Gig By Gig At California’s Community Colleges, in 2022.)

The Long Beach district recently set aside $20 million for the settlement and associated costs, its spokesperson, Stacey Toda, told the Long Beach Post in an email. “Resolving this matter allows the District to avoid prolonged litigation and manage risk responsibly, consistent with standard practices across public higher education,” Toda wrote.

The settlement “is a big deal, it is tremendous,” said John Martin, chair of the California Part-Time Faculty Association, and a community college adjunct professor in Shasta and Butte counties.

Martin, a long-time advocate for better pay for adjuncts, is also the plaintiff in similar ongoing lawsuits, including one against the state Community College system.

In legal papers filed in the Superior Court, Goldsmith wrote that the proposed settlement, if approved, will result in 1,456 class members receiving more than “$11,000 — a very meaningful result for these class members, particularly given the novel issues in this litigation.”

The Long Beach Post contributed to this story.