Dear Friend —

As COVID-19 cases continue to surge around the country and here in southern California, the City of Long Beach is announcing some important operational changes as we take an aggressive approach to help keep our community safe. This increase in cases is incredibly concerning but, thanks to the incredible success of our vaccination program, the number of those hospitalized remains well below what we saw during last winter's surge.

Of those who are currently hospitalized, 72% are unvaccinated.

I want to thank everyone who has made it a priority to get vaccinated and get their boosters including the over 85% of Long Beach adults who have received at least one dose. Vaccines are saving lives and it remains critically important for us to continue increasing our vaccination rate for everyone eligible — especially children 5 and older.

As always, you can find information and make a plan to get vaccinated here.

Long Beach is also working to dramatically scale up our testing and vaccination clinics due to a significant increase in demand. On December 14, we had 347 people test for COVID-19 at Long Beach clinics while yesterday, January 4, our staff processed 6,965 tests.

In response to this overwhelming demand, we are expanding testing operations at our LBCC Pacific Coast Campus Clinic and deploying additional Health Department staff to support rapid testing at all city-run clinics.

If you need to schedule a COVID-19 test, you can find clinic hours and locations and schedule an appointment here.

We are also taking steps to protect public health by making temporary modifications to City events. You can find a full list of updates here.

Thank you again to everyone for continuing to do your part to keep our community safe. I want to especially thank our healthcare workers and the incredible staff at our testing and vaccination clinics.

Stay safe,

Mayor Robert Garcia