COVID-19 Vaccinations Soar In California For First Time In Months

CALIFORNIA — State officials lauded the "amazing progress" after 341,000 first doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered last week in California.

That's the highest number of new first doses since May, when the state widely expanded COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to Californians 12 and older.

"Keep it up," the governor's office said on Twitter. "Vaccines are how we end this pandemic."

More than half of Californians have been fully vaccinated, the Los Angeles Times reported. Six in 10 received at least one dose.

California continued to reckon with the highly transmissible delta variant, which some experts believed could also be more dangerous than previous iterations of the coronavirus.

California's daily case rate and number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients rose sharply in recent weeks, particularly among the unvaccinated. Unvaccinated Californians were six times more likely to be sickened by the coronavirus, state public health officials said this week.

The seven-day average case rate was 22 per 100,000 people Tuesday, the most recent day for which data was available Friday. That's up from eight cases per 100,000 people July 10 and two cases per 100,000 people June 10.

COVID-19 infections remain rare among vaccinated individuals, but officials continued to stress that all three vaccines currently authorized for emergency use help keep people from experiencing serious illness, hospitalization and death.

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Take Marin County, just north of San Francisco, for example. It's America's most vaccinated county, and while it's seen cases surge on par with most of the nation, the county's health care system hasn't been overwhelmed as others have.

"What's important about this surge and differs from previous surges is it has not corresponded with the same threat in terms of severe illness and death, largely because of the vaccine," Marin Health Officer Matt Willis said Tuesday.

Read more: Vaxxed Marin Weathers Delta Surge

Los Angeles County officials reported this week that nearly one in 10 residents who were sickened by the delta variant ended up in the hospital.

"This alarming increase in the rise of hospitalizations serves as a stark reminder that this virus causes debilitating and dangerous illness among many who are infected," Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said.

Read more: Nearly 10% Of Covid Cases Lead To Hospitalizations In LA County

Some local governments in California were looking to up the ante as the delta variant spread.

San Francisco became the country's second city — following New York — to require vaccination to enter some indoor places. Los Angeles area officials mulled similar rules.

Several California counties required people to mask up when entering indoor public spaces.