Get Vaccinated this Weekend Win Chance to Get Tickets to a Lakers Basketball Game

This weekend at all the County-run vaccination sites, the Department of Health Services vaccination sites, and the L.A. City vaccination sites, everyone 18 years and older coming to get their first vaccine will have a chance to enter the Los Angeles Lakers 2021-22 Season Ticket Vaccination Sweepstakes to win a pair (2) of season tickets for next season. For additional information, visit: http://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/vaccine/sweepstakes.htm. With millions of residents still needing to get vaccinated, this is an exciting opportunity that allows those still not protected to get vaccinated and perhaps be the lucky person who gets to watch the Lakers pursue a championship.

With nearly 4 million people in L.A. County that have received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine (or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine), Public Health has good information to understand the level of protection that fully vaccinated people have from becoming infected, getting sick, or dying from COVID-19.

Among these fully vaccinated people, 933 people were identified who tested positive for a COVID-19 infection contracted more than two weeks after they were fully vaccinated. That means that about 0.03% of all vaccinated people tested positive for COVID-19. This includes people who were tested as a matter of routine requirement by their workplace, including asymptomatic people. Of fully vaccinated people, 71 of them, or 0.002%, were hospitalized for infections contracted while fully vaccinated. And 12 people died of their infections, or 0.00036% of vaccinated County residents.

On a review of the charts of the 12 people who died, Public Health found that four had severely weakened immune systems. This finding is a signal to people whose immune systems are suppressed may need to take additional steps to protect themselves in seasons and situations where COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses spread more easily.

These are real-world data that were collected by matching the immunization records of people fully vaccinated with those of people who tested positive, were hospitalized, and died. The DPH team uses a very sophisticated matching algorithm to find as many of these breakthrough cases as possible.

And the news from the analysis is very good: these numbers show the vaccine is working extraordinarily well to prevent infection, illness, and death in almost everyone vaccinated. This data is also shedding light on the need to gather more information on those whose immune systems are suppressed, to find out if they need to take additional precautions beyond the vaccine.