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People with appointments stand in line to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in East Los Angeles amid eased lockdown restrictions on January 28.
People with appointments stand in line to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in East Los Angeles amid eased lockdown restrictions on January 28. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Starting Tuesday, Los Angeles County will only be offering appointments for the second dosage of the coronavirus vaccine due to a shortage in supply, rather than offering any more first doses, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced.  

“Scheduling an appointment right now is challenging because of the limited supply of vaccines that the county is receiving on a weekly basis,” the public health department said in a press release Monday.

This will last for the remainder of the week.

Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said in a news conference Monday that this is to “ensure that we have enough doses to guarantee a second dose for people who already received the first one.”

More first-time appointments will be offered once the county receives more doses, she added.  

While it’s unclear if this applies to all vaccination sites in the county, including the city’s mass vaccination sites like Dodger Stadium, the public health department posted in a tweet on Saturday that seven vaccination sites in the county will only administer the second doses for the remainder of the week.

CNN has reached out to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health for clarification.  

There are 365 sites offering the vaccination this week, according to the release. About 20% of the county’s residents 65 and older have been vaccinated with at least one dose of the vaccine.  

To date, Los Angeles County has reported a total of 1,149,064 confirmed coronavirus cases and 18,135 deaths.

source: cnn.com