Riverside County health officials remember COVID-19 victims
As 2020 comes to a close, Riverside County health officials took a moment to remember the lives lost during the pandemic over the past 9 months.
A total of 1,985 county residents have died due to coronavirus. In November, Saruwatari reported that COVID-19 is the third leading cause of death in Riverside County in 2020.
Cancer and heart disease, also leading causes of death in Riverside County, increased in 2020, as did COVID-19. It s not that we are detracting from our other leading causes of death and adding to COVID. We are seeing a true increase in death due to COVID, Saruwatari said.
Some health care workers refuse to take COVID-19 vaccine, even with priority access By Colleen Shalby, Emily Baumgaertner, Hailey Branson-Potts, Alejandra Reyes-Velarde, Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times
Published: December 31, 2020, 8:29am
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LOS ANGELES – They are front-line workers with top priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine, but they are refusing to take it.
At St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Tehama County, California, fewer than half of the 700 hospital workers eligible for the vaccine were willing to take the shot when it was first offered. At Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, one in five front-line nurses and doctors have declined the shot. Roughly 20% to 40% of the L.A. County’s front-line workers who were offered the vaccine did the same, according to county public health officials.
They are frontline workers with top-priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine, but they are refusing to take it.
At St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Tehama County, fewer than half of the 700 hospital workers eligible for the vaccine were willing to take the shot when it was first offered. At Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, one in five frontline nurses and doctors have declined the shot. Roughly 20% to 40% of L.A. County’s frontline workers who were offered the vaccine did the same, according to county public health officials.
So many frontline workers in Riverside County have refused the vaccine an estimated 50% that hospital and public officials met to strategize how best to distribute the unused doses, Public Health Director Kim Saruwatari said.