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If You Got The First Vaccine Dose At An LA County Site, You Should Get An Email About Your Second Shot

By Caitlin Hernández
Published Jan 26, 2021 12:33 PM
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People arrive in their vehicles to receive Covid-19 vaccines at the Fairplex in Pomona, California on January 22, 2021, one of five mass Covid-19 vaccine sites opened across Los Angeles County this week. (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
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If you’ve already received your first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, you might be wondering: Where do I get my second shot? Do I get an automatic appointment? Do I need to set 20 calendar notifications? How will I know where and when to go? Is someone going to tell me what's going on? HELP.

Suffice it to say, there has been a lot of confusion about this (and plenty of eligible county residents still haven’t been able to book an appointment for their first shot).

Here's what the Los Angeles County public health officials said via Twitter on Jan. 24, about second dose notifications:

“Residents who receive their first dose of the vaccine at a County-run large capacity vaccination site will be provided the date and location to receive their second dose, and automatically registered for their second dose appointment. They will also get email reminders.”

On Jan. 25, the department sent out
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another Tweet to clarify further -- explaining that second dose appointment reminders will be sent before the appointment, not necessarily right after your first shot. The appointments are automatically booked at the same location where you received your first shot, 21 days later. Again, this is only for county-run sites.

In case you're confused about what this means (as you might very well be, seeing as it is very confusing), these are the county-run sites they're referring to:

  • Pomona Fairplex
  • CSUN
  • The Forum
  • Magic Mountain
  • County Office of Education (Downey, CA)

We've heard that emails have already gone out to some people, so check your inbox and spam folder.
If you didn’t get your first dose at one of these sites, the county says you’ll have to register for the second appointment with that first provider. Dodger Stadium for example is operated by the city, not the county, so that's a totally different system, operated by Carbon Health.

Another caveat — as of Jan. 26, the above information about getting an email reminder for your second dose apointment is not on LADPH’s appointment website.

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So, if you or someone you know needs this information and missed the Tweet, you might not have gotten the info.

Right now, the groups eligible for the vaccine are long-term care residents and staff, health care workers and those 65-and-older — not exactly Twitter's core user demographic.

We will post more information about second doses as it becomes available.

Also, if you did get your vaccine from one of these large county sites and you didn’t get an email, we want to know about it. Get in touch with community engagement reporter Carla Javier by filling out this form.

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UPDATE at 5:30 p.m.

We finally have some clarity about booking your second dose if you got your vaccine at a city-run site, like Dodger Stadium, which is operated by Carbon Health.

Here's the deal:

  • Starting this week, if you get a first shot through a city vaccination site, you will be automatically booked for a second dose, which will be shared with you via text (with the option to reschedule if you absolutely can't make that appointment) within four days.
  • For those of you who got your first dose before this switch, someone from the city or Carbon Health will reach out to you, to schedule your second dose appointment.
  • The city is prioritizing second doses right now, given the limited supply.

As always, if you have other general questions about the vaccine, drop them here:
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