A.M. Brief: Winter Weather Delays Vaccine Shipments to Los Angeles

Up for today: Bad weather delays vaccine shipments, parents plot a “Zoom blackout” to protest school closures, no-appointment COVID testing comes to Los Angeles, and a violent attack at a Rosemead bus stop. This is your morning brief. Take it!

Morning News Rundown

The freezing cold weather hitting much of the country and wreaking havoc across Texas has impacted nationwide supply lines of the COVID-19 vaccine. Some city-run Los Angeles distribution centers have been forced to scale back upcoming appointments due to expected shipping delays. A statement from the city says that roughly 12,500 people who had appointments scheduled for Friday will be affected by the delays, and those individuals should receive text, phone, or email notifications with updates on how to reschedule. [L.A. Times]

Vaccine shipment delays are also affecting mega-sites in Orange County. Distribution centers at Disneyland and Santa Ana College will both close temporarily until vaccine resupplies are available. [CBS LA]

A group of parents organized through a Facebook Group is planning a “Zoom blackout” on Monday to protest Los Angeles Unified School District’s refusal to restart in-person classes. LAUSD has stated it wants teachers vaccinated before the district reopens for in-person learning. [ABC 7]

The City of Long Beach has prioritized a portion of its vaccines for teachers. So far, about 12% of all doses (7,000 out of 55,000 total first doses administered) have gone to educators. Long Beach elementary schools are on track to reopen by the end of March. [LB Post]

During yesterday’s afternoon briefing, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that starting next week, Angelenos will not need an appointment to get a COVID-19 test at Los Angeles testing sites. It was not clear from the briefing when exactly that will start. [NBC Los Angeles]

Last week, a Rosemead bus stop was the site of a horrific attack against a longtime employee of Gates Street Elementary School. The victim, 51-year-old Matthew Leung, lost a finger in the apparently unprovoked attack. Law enforcement is investigating the possibility that the crime was part of a recent trend of violence against Asian-Americans in the region. [ABC Los Angeles]

After a near 300-million mile journey, the NASA Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars yesterday at approximately 12:55 p.m. local time. The rover now begins an ongoing mission to collect samples and look for signs of life at the site of the Jezero Crater, a 28-mile wide lake bed suspected to have held water billions of years ago. [CNN]