by Steven Felschundneff | steven@claremont-courier.com

Claremont is among Los Angeles County communities with the highest rate of vaccinations according to data released by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

Public health reports 6,680 Claremont residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine, 21.1 percent of the total population, which ranks it eleventh among cities in the county. Several neighborhoods within the city of Los Angeles also had very high vaccination rates.

Claremont locales outside city limits were a mixed bag, with Padua Hills reporting 39 people vaccinated, 30.5 percent of the population, while other unincorporated areas reported 78 people or 14.6 percent. Neighboring La Verne was not too much further down the list at 19.4 percent.

The top fifteen communities for vaccination rates are: Beverley Hills at 29.2 percent; Rolling Hills Estates, 28.3; San Marino, 27; Rolling Hills, 26.8; Palos Verdes Estates, 26.7; La Canada Flintridge, 26.5; Rancho Palos Verdes, 25; Hidden Hills, 23.2; Manhattan Beach 21.8; South Pasadena, 21.4; Claremont, 21.1; Walnut, 21.1; Pasadena 20.3; Culver City, 20.1; Duarte, 20.1.

If the age breakdown in Claremont is similar to the county as a whole, then 53 percent of those 6,680 people are age 65 and older and the rest are healthcare workers, including employees of skilled nursing and long term care facilities. Beginning March 1, a new group of residents will be able to make vaccination appointments including workers in education and childcare, emergency services, food and agriculture. This will put a new strain on the distribution system which has struggled so far to keep up with demand.

The challenge for the first two months of the vaccination effort both locally and for the state overall remains a shortage of available doses. However, according to county data, availability is improving with 262,925 doses delivered during the week between February 8 and 15, compared with 219,700 the week before. As of Monday, the county had administered 1,771,000 cumulative doses and 513,586 people have received the second dose.

A quick glance at the list of top vaccinated communities illustrates what health officials have been reporting for weeks, those receiving the inoculation are overwhelmingly from wealthy and largely white areas. Breakdowns of the distribution by race show that 370, 382 white residents, 33.5 percent, have received at least one shot compared with 57,328 Black residents, 5.2 percent.

The pandemic has hit the Hispanic community the hardest with 542,631 of the cumulative 1,181,403 coronavirus cases and 9,862 deaths. Yet, just 255,197, or 23 percent of those inoculated are Hispanic.

@font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:””; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;}a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {mso-style-parent:””; color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;}a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {mso-style-noshow:yes; color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;}div.Section1 {page:Section1;}