The City of Long Beach has misrepresented to media outlets the number of vaccinations administered. On Friday March 5, the City of LB issued a media release announcing that the "City received permission from the State of California" [no supportive documents attached] to begin vaccinating residents ages 16 to 64 with physical or developmental disabilities "ahead of the March 15 rollout planned statewide due to the Health and Human Services Department’s success in vaccinating people in the current available phases," The City release states that "more than 16% of the total population in Long Beach has been vaccinated,"

That figure is visibly false, The City's COVID-19 dashboard (cited above) shows roughly 16% of LB's population (residents + non-residents) has only been PARTIALLY vaccinated (received first shots). Roughly 9.1% of LB's population has received both doses (fully vaccinated) needed for full immunity,

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The City release compounds the inaccuracy by stating that "the number [16%] that rises to over 20% when looking only at Long Beach residents "old enough to receive the vaccine." The City doesn't mention that both the 16% and 20% are only partial vaccinations AND include non-residents.(without saying how many, a figure we presume the City knows.)

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LBREPORT.com notes that LA County's overall vaccination rate reflects a wide disparity between the County's affluent and working class areas. A large segment of Central LA County working class and minority neighborhoods has a vaccination rate of under 9.9% while parts of affluent WLA and western County suburbs have over 21% vaccination rates. The "overall" L.A. County figure is a homogenized version of areas between these two extremes.

Long Beach also has a vaccination disparity and it's more extreme: from 27.1% of population vaccinated in zip code 90803 to 9% in 90813. LB's overall vaccination figures are a similarly homogenized version between these extremes.

This story reflects a significant numerical revision from our initial version (which included LA County second shots in the County's total displayed doses,) An LBREPORT.com reader called this into question and on consideration we believe may be right; the total doses displayed by L.A. County aren't 1st doses but include second doses administered. An L County Health Dept, media reps were unavailable to field our telephone inquiry on this matter.

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