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XHow to Find a COVID Vaccination Appointment in Los Angeles
Francesca Billington is a freelance reporter. Prior to that, she was a general assignment reporter for dot.LA and has also reported for KCRW, the Santa Monica Daily Press and local publications in New Jersey. She graduated from Princeton in 2019 with a degree in anthropology.
Now that California residents 50 and older qualify for a COVID-19 vaccine — all adults will qualify on April 15 — Angelenos are scrambling to find and book appointments. We've pulled together some resources, including places to find them and answers to questions people are asking. Have more questions? Let us know and we'll try to get it answered.
When will I qualify for a vaccine?
On April 1, all California residents over 50 became eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. All adults 16 and older will be able to get shots starting April 15.
How do you sign up for the second dose?
Of the three vaccines now available, only the Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires only a single shot. If you get either Moderna or Pfizer you'll be able to book a follow-up either when you make your first appointment or when you arrive at your sit to get the first shot.
Can children get the vaccine yet? Pregnant women?
There isn't enough information yet to begin vaccinating people under 16. Folks 16 and 17 can receive the Pfizer vaccine, but the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are meant for those 18 and older.
Pregnant women can get any of the three vaccines. Based on what's known about the vaccines, experts don't believe they pose any risk.
What should I know after getting the vaccine? How protected am I?
People are considered fully vaccinated either two weeks after their second dose for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines or two weeks after the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Once you're fully vaccinated, health officials say you can visit indoors with a small group of other fully vaccinated people without physically distancing or wearing a mask. You can also visit indoors with unvaccinated people from one other household without those safety precautions (unless they or those they live with are at high risk for getting severely sick).
For more commonly asked questions, check out the county's FAQ sheet.
Find out if you're eligible and browse appointments:
- MyTurn.ca.gov is the state website that can determine whether it's your time and help you book a slot. If you're not yet eligible, the site will send you a notification when you are.
- The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health lists slots under the drop-bar 3 here titled "Look for an appointment." You can search by location, type of vaccination site or by online appointment system. The website also lists eligibility requirements and offers a vaccine newsletter for updates.
- Carbon Health is powering appointments at L.A. City sites including Dodger Stadium.
- Curative offers vaccines at El Camino College.
- Kaiser Permanente lists openings—and you don't have to be a Kaiser patient to receive a vaccine.
- Walgreens, CVS, Ralphs, Rite Aid, and Albertsons let you book online, too. Costco and Vons have unique sites for individual pharmacies that can be found on the county's website.
- Residents with disabilities or without computer access can call the L.A. Dept of Public Health at 1-833-540-0473 between 8:00 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. all week.
A few volunteer-powered websites are frequently updated with open slots in your area:
- Try VaccinateCA to find open times that might not be listed on your county or city's website.
- Find My Vax LA refreshes every few minutes with new appointments at a range of sites across L.A.
- VaxxMaxx collects appointments at CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid locations. Be sure to refine your search by selecting California and the pharmacy chain you'd like to visit.
- VaccineSpotterCA scans for slots at pharmacy chains. Refine the search with your zip code and the distance you're able to travel.
- JabHunter displays the phone numbers and locations to appointments listed on My Turn.
- Vaccine Fairy is a national initiative that accepts appointment requests to book a slot on your behalf. Filling out the form does not guarantee an appointment, but you'll receive an email confirmation if one is booked at your preferred time and location.
- Get Out the Shot: Los Angeles is a group of volunteers that can help you book an appointment. They aim to serve vulnerable communities in need of finding slots, specifically nannies, house cleaners and essential workers. Call (213) 986-7604 or, if in need of scheduling for a large number of people, email at GOTS.LosAngeles@gmail.com.
Twitter accounts to follow:
- @FindMyVaxLA_Bot is the automated Twitter account synched to the Find My Vax LA website. It blasts new appointments across the city all day.
- @CovidVaccineCA and @CovidVaccineLA both display slots posted on the MyTurn platform.
- @LAPublicHealth is the L.A. County of Public Health's account that tweets a mix of open vaccine appointments and other info about COVID.
- VaccineCA posts about appointments available through MyTurn.
Looking for more info? This bustling Reddit megathread is filled with tips and reddittors discussing their experiences finding appointments. Get Out the Shot's Facebook group offers similar information.
This story was last updated on Thursday, April 1.
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Francesca Billington is a freelance reporter. Prior to that, she was a general assignment reporter for dot.LA and has also reported for KCRW, the Santa Monica Daily Press and local publications in New Jersey. She graduated from Princeton in 2019 with a degree in anthropology.
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Astroforge Raises $13M To Mine Asteroids
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Y Combinator startup Astroforge wants to use its new $13 million seed round to mine asteroids.
The Huntington Beach-based company aims to become the first company to bring asteroid resources back to Earth, TechCrunch reported Thursday. Initialized Capital led the funding round and was joined by investors Seven Seven Six, EarthRise, Aera VC, Liquid 2 and Soma.
“When you look at the opportunity here—and the opportunity really is to mine the universe—this is such a huge opportunity that investors are willing to make the bet on a longer time horizon,” Astroforge co-founder Matt Gialich told TechCrunch.
Virgin Orbit veteran Gialich launched the company alongside his co-founder, SpaceX and NASA alum Jose Acain, in January; the four-person firm, which Gialich said is now hiring for seven more positions, hopes to successfully mine an asteroid by the end of the decade. The seed money will fund Astroforge’s first two missions, with its first being a demo flight scheduled for a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare launch next year.
While Astroforge is keeping the specifics of its technology close to the vest, the company told TechCrunch that it involves a “high-rated vacuum” and requires a zero-gravity environment, but won’t involve actually landing on the asteroid itself. The company is eyeing asteroids ranging from 20 meters to 1.5 kilometers in diameter that carry high concentrations of platinum-group metals, which limits its potential targets to less than 1 million of the 10 million asteroids near Earth.
Astroforge wouldn’t be the first to attempt this science fiction-esque endeavor, though commercial space mining has faced financial and logistical obstacles that no company has yet overcome. NASA, for its part, is counting on the private sector to realize the U.S.’s space mining ambitions, then-deputy administrator Jim Morhard told dot.LA in 2020.
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Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Illumix Founder Kirin Sinha On Using Math to Inform Creative Thinking
Yasmin is the host of the "Behind Her Empire" podcast, focused on highlighting self-made women leaders and entrepreneurs and how they tackle their career, money, family and life.
Each episode covers their unique hero's journey and what it really takes to build an empire with key lessons learned along the way. The goal of the series is to empower you to see what's possible & inspire you to create financial freedom in your own life.
Kirin Sinha wanted to be a dancer. When injury dashed that dream, she turned to her other passion: math.
On this week’s episode of the Behind Her Empire podcast, host Yasmin Nouri talks with the founder and CEO of augmented reality (AR) technology and media platform Illumix.
Sinha received degrees from MIT, the University of Cambridge and LSE and founded a nonprofit to help middle school girls with their math skills. She ventured into AR while perusing an MBA at Stanford. Since founding Illumix in 2017, Sinha has raised $13 million from investors including Lightspeed and Maveron Ventures.
Her background in mathematics informs how she problem solves as a CEO, she said. Both math and her dance background taught her to seek out creative solutions.
“A lot of people think that math is very rote and analytical, but at its core it's truly not,” Sinha said. “It's about being creative. It's about having this building block for expressing and understanding the world around you.”
That creativity is bolstered by habits her mother taught her, such as surrounding herself with affirmations drawn onto post-it notes to bolster her spirits. Working in AR, Sinha said she's aware that what people surround themselves with impacts their inner world.
“Your diet is the people around you,” she said. “It's what you surround yourself with. It's the images and the words that surround your day-to-day life. I really spend a lot of time thinking about how can you improve the wider sense of the word diet around you.”
A crucial part of Sinha’s diet is carving out time for a daily walk to dedicate time to ponder Illumix’s future. Reflecting on big-picture goals and challenges allows her to consider how AR changes the ways people engage with the space around them.
Hear more of the Behind Her Empire podcast. Subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radioor wherever you get your podcasts.
dot.LA Editorial Intern Kristin Snyder contributed to this post.
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Yasmin is the host of the "Behind Her Empire" podcast, focused on highlighting self-made women leaders and entrepreneurs and how they tackle their career, money, family and life.
Each episode covers their unique hero's journey and what it really takes to build an empire with key lessons learned along the way. The goal of the series is to empower you to see what's possible & inspire you to create financial freedom in your own life.
Rael Raises $35M To Grow Its Organic Feminine Care Brand
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Rael, a Buena Park-based organic feminine care and beauty brand, has raised $35 million in a Series B funding round, the company announced Wednesday.
The funding was led by the venture arms of two Asian companies: Japanese gaming firm Colopl’s Colopl Next and South Korean conglomerate Shinsegae Group’s Signite Partners. Aarden Partners and ST Capital also participated, as did existing investors Mirae Asset and Unilever Ventures.
Rael described the new round—which takes its total funding to date to $59 million—as “the largest amount raised in the U.S. feminine care category to date.” The company said it plans to use the capital to grow its product offerings, retail partnerships and global marketing reach.
Having already branched into skincare products meant to combat hormonal acne, co-founder and CEO Yanghee Paik said Rael plans on further expanding beyond basic feminine care products. “We aspire to be a clean, holistic personal care brand for women, so we’re graduating from just being another organic feminine care company,” Paik told dot.LA.
Paik and her two co-founders, who are all Korean-American women, launched Rael in 2017 and started out by selling organic pads on Amazon. Paik said she was inspired by the products she would bring back home after trips to South Korea, where the organic category represents more than 30% of the feminine care market (compared to less than 10% of the U.S. market, according to Rael). The startup has since expanded into retail stores like Target and Walmart, and part of its new funding will be dedicated to further growing its retail presence.
These days, Rael is part of an increasing number of companies focused on organic feminine care, with brands like LOLA, The Honey Pot and The Flex Co. all offering organic menstrual products.
“The feminine care industry is not like beauty, which attracted a lot of investors initially,” Paik said. “People are noticing that it’s one of the markets that has not been noticed by investors as much, but has a lot of growth potential because it’s been dominated by big brands. Now there are female-founded smaller brands that are trying to make a difference there.”
As part of Rael’s growth efforts, the company has also brought in Lauren Consiglio, a former marketing executive at Unilever and L’Oreal, as its president.
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Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.