Essential California February 23, 2021 Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Tuesday. Feb. 23, and I’m writing from Los Angeles. The issue of equity has loomed large over California’s vaccine rollout, with Gov. Gavin Newsom often speaking about the importance of administering vaccines “through an equity lens.” But stark inequities have still emerged in vaccine administration in the state, with white and Asian people in affluent areas being inoculated at higher rates than Black and Latino people in poorer areas. Under a new program intended to improve COVID-19 vaccine availability for people in hard-hit communities of color, the state has been setting aside blocks of appointments at two new mass vaccination sites. Special access codes for those appointments are being given to local organizations in Black and Latino communities, with the organizations expected to distribute the codes to community members. The codes are intended for use by people living in the most affected communities who are vaccine-eligible but might otherwise struggle to get an appointment. In theory, it’s a great idea — exactly the kind of thing we should be doing to get vaccines in the arms of people who need them most, with the help of trusted community partners on the ground. Particularly because one of the biggest barriers to vaccinations has been the appointment registration process, as the chief science officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health recently told my colleagues. But as has been the case throughout the vaccine rollout, wherever there is a slight opening, the resourced and tech savvy find their way in. Despite being intended for use in the most hard-hit communities, these vaccine appointment access codes have circulated widely among the wealthier, work-from-home set in Los Angeles. In a new story, I look at how the codes have strayed far from their intended recipients, spreading like wildfire in more affluent social and professional networks. In at least a few cases, the codes have enabled people to get vaccinated who wouldn’t otherwise be eligible and don’t live in the intended communities. Those circulating the codes did not seem to be aware that they were intended for hard-hit communities. In several cases, people thought they had stumbled upon a pilot program that was open to all. (The stated purpose of the access codes is not conveyed anywhere on the state’s vaccine scheduling website, nor does the site say the codes are intended only to be used by certain groups.) By Monday evening, the codes had spread so quickly through certain social networks that one woman in her 40s who lives near downtown Los Angeles told The Times that she had been sent three codes from different people over the last few days. And now, here’s what’s happening across California: California’s rocky COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been dogged by poor communication and forecasting. California is failing to provide crucial information about COVID-19 vaccine supply levels to local officials, complicating efforts to schedule appointments and contributing to temporary closures of vaccination sites. Los Angeles Times COVID-19 deaths in the United States surpassed 500,000 on Monday, the latest desolate way station in a vast landscape of loss