The Associated Press

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Reversing Trump, Pentagon releases new transgender policy

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The Pentagon on Wednesday will sweep away Trump-era policies that largely banned transgender people from serving in the military, issuing new rules that offer them wider access to medical care and assistance with gender transition, defense officials told The Associated Press.

The new department regulations allow transgender people who meet military standards to enlist and serve openly in their self-identified gender, and they will be able to get medically necessary transition-related care authorized by law, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal decisions not yet made public.

The changes come after a two-month Pentagon review aimed at developing guidelines for the new policy, which was announced by President Joe Biden just days after he took office in January. 

Biden’s executive order overturned the Trump policy and immediately prohibited any service member from being forced out of the military on the basis of gender identity. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin then gave the Pentagon two months to finalize the more detailed regulations that the military services will follow. 

The new rules also prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. Their expected release Wednesday coincides with International Transgender Day of Visibility.MORE STORIES:

Austin has also called for a reexamination of the records of service members who were discharged or denied reenlistment because of gender identity issues under the previous policy. Results of that review have not been released.

Until a few years ago, service members could be discharged from the military for being transgender, but that changed during the Obama administration. In 2016, the Pentagon announced that transgender people already serving in the military would be allowed to serve openly, and that by July 2017, they would be allowed to enlist.

After Donald Trump took office, however, his administration delayed the enlistment date and called for additional study. A few weeks later, Trump caught military leaders by surprise, tweeting that the government wouldn’t accept or allow transgender people to serve “in any capacity” in the military. 

After a lengthy and complicated legal battle and additional reviews, the Defense Department in April 2019 approved a policy that fell short of an all-out ban but barred transgender troops and recruits from transitioning to another sex and required most individuals to serve in what the administration called their “birth gender.” 

Under that policy, currently serving transgender troops and anyone who had signed an enlistment contract before the effective date could continue with plans for hormone treatments and gender transition if they had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

But after that date, no one with gender dysphoria who was taking hormones or had transitioned to another gender was allowed to enlist. Troops that were already serving and were diagnosed with gender dysphoria were required to serve in the gender assigned at birth and were barred from taking hormones or getting transition surgery.

The new policies being released Wednesday are similar to those developed in 2016.

As of 2019, an estimated 14,700 troops on active duty and in the reserves identify as transgender, but not all seek treatment. There are more than 1.3 million active-duty troops and close to 800,000 in the National Guard and Reserves.

Since July 2016, more than 1,500 service members were diagnosed with gender dysphoria; as of Feb. 1, 2019, there were 1,071 currently serving. According to the Pentagon, the department spent about $8 million on transgender care from 2016 to 2019. The military’s annual health care budget tops $50 billion.

All four service chiefs told Congress in 2018 that they had seen no discipline, morale or unit readiness problems with transgender troops serving openly in the military. But they also acknowledged that some commanders were spending a lot of time with transgender people who were working through medical requirements and other transition issues.

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EU lawmakers to debate declaring bloc an LGBT ‘freedom zone’

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The European Parliament is scheduled to debate a resolution on Wednesday that would declare the entire 27-member European Union a “freedom zone” for LGBT people.

The move comes largely in reaction to developments over the past two years in Poland, where many local communities have adopted largely symbolic resolutions declaring themselves free of what conservative authorities have been calling “LGBT ideology.” 

These towns say they are seeking to defend their traditional Catholic values, but LGBT rights activists say the designations are discriminatory and make gays and lesbians feel unwelcome. The areas have come to be colloquially known as “LGBT-free zones.”

But the resolution to be debated Wednesday also seeks to address problems faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer people across the bloc. 

It says the fundamental rights of LGBT people have been “severely hindered” recently in Hungary due to a de facto ban on legal gender recognition for transgender and intersex people. It cites problems in Latvia, and notes that only two member states — Malta and Germany — have banned “conversion therapy,” a controversial and potentially harmful attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation.

The resolution is the work of the a cross-party group in the European Parliament, the LGBTI Intergroup, which says it has garnered enough support to approve the largely symbolic resolution.

Liesje Schreinemacher, the vice chair of the group and a Dutch lawmaker with Renew Europe, a liberal political group, said the resolution is timed to roughly mark the second anniversary of the first Polish community, Swidnik County, passing an anti-LGBT resolution.

She also referred to problems elsewhere, including suspicions that a man murdered in Belgium on the weekend was the victim of a homophobic attack.

“We wanted to send a strong signal in Poland that we consider all of Europe to be an LGBTI freedom zone,” she told The Associated Press. “But every European country has work to do.”

Dozens of local governments across conservative eastern and southern Poland began in March 2019 to pass either resolutions declaring themselves to be free from “LGBT ideology,” or family charters defending traditional families in the mostly Catholic nation.

They have proven costly to Poland’s international image, and to the finances of local communities. The EU and Norway — a non-EU member that funds some development in EU nations — have cut off funds for policies they view as discriminatory.

Bart Staszewski, a Polish activist who created an art project on the “LGBT-free zones” that drew the ire of the government and conservatives, said he sees the EU resolution as “important and necessary.”

But he also noted that local governments stopped passing such resolutions months ago and some communities have already withdrawn theirs. Others have passed resolutions declaring support for all types of families.

“There is some very good change,” Staszewski said. “I see this as a very good sign for the future.”

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Federal judge dismisses discrimination lawsuit by transgender fire chief in Georgia

A federal judge has dismissed a discrimination lawsuit by a transgender fire chief who led a rural Georgia city’s fire department for more than a decade, then got fired 18 months after first coming to work as a woman.

U.S. District Court Judge Tilman E. Self III didn’t rule on the merits of Rachel Mosby’s discrimination claims. Instead, the judge decided Mosby had no legal standing to sue because of a technical flaw with the initial complaint she filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Mosby’s attorney, Kenneth Barton, said in a court filing Feb. 2 that he planned to appeal the judge’s dismissal.

City officials in Byron fired Mosby in June 2019, citing poor job performance. She filed suit last April, saying her termination was instead “based on her sex, gender identity, and notions of sex stereotyping.”

Mosby, who had led Byron’s fire department since 2008, said being fired not only cost her wages and financial benefits, but also tarnished her reputation.

Mayor Michael Chidester and other Byron city officials denied Mosby was fired because of her transition.

The judge dismissed the case without wading into that issue. Instead, he focused on problems with the 2019 complaint Mosby filed with the EEOC — a required step before someone can sue an employer for discrimination.

Tilman found Mosby’s initial complaint to the EEOC on June 28, 2019, failed to include a written sworn statement or notarized affirmation as the agency requires. Though Mosby’s attorney tried to amend the complaint to include the missing document last July, the judge ruled that was too late because the EEOC had already closed Mosby’s case and she had filed suit.

Tilman’s ruling Jan. 28 also threw out Mosby’s claims that Byron officials had denied her due process and defamed her character.

In a landmark decision last June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits sex discrimination applies to bias against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

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Report: Hate groups in decline, migrate to online networks

During one of the most politically divisive years in recent memory, the number of active hate groups in the U.S. actually declined as far-right extremists migrated further to online networks, reflecting a splintering of white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups that are more difficult to track.

In its annual report, to be released Monday, the Southern Poverty Law Center said it identified 838 active hate groups operating across the U.S. in 2020. That’s a decrease from the 940 documented in 2019 and the record-high of 1,020 in 2018, said the law center, which tracks racism, xenophobia and anti-government militias.

“It is important to understand that the number of hate groups is merely one metric for measuring the level of hate and racism in America, and that the decline in groups should not be interpreted as a reduction in bigoted beliefs and actions motivated by hate,” said the report, first shared exclusively with The Associated Press.

The Montgomery, Alabama-based law center said many hate groups have moved to social media platforms and use of encrypted apps, while others have been banned altogether from mainstream social media networks.

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Still, the law center said, online platforms allow individuals to interact with hate and anti-government groups without becoming members, maintain connections with likeminded people, and take part in real-world actions, such as last month’s siege on the U.S. Capitol.

White nationalist organizations, a subset of the hate groups listed in the report, declined last year by more than 100. Those groups had seen huge growth the previous two years after being energized by Donald Trump’s campaign and presidency, the report said.

The number of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ hate groups remained largely stable, while their in-person organizing was hampered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Bottom line, the levels of hate and bigotry in America have not diminished, said SPLC President and CEO Margaret Huang.

“What’s important is that we start to reckon with all the reasons why those groups have persisted for so long and been able to get so much influence in the last White House, that they actually feel emboldened,” Huang told the AP.

Last month, as President Joe Biden’s administration began settling in, the Department of Homeland Security issued an early national terrorism bulletin in response to a growing threat from home-grown extremists, including anti-government militias and white supremacists. The extremists are coalescing under a broader, more loosely affiliated movement of people who reject democratic institutions and multiculturalism, Huang said.

The SPLC’s report comes out nearly a month after a mostly white mob of Trump supporters and members of far-right groups violently breached the U.S. Capitol building. At least five deaths have been linked to the assault, including a Capitol police officer. Some in the mob waved Confederate battle flags and wore clothing with neo-Nazi symbolism.

Federal authorities have made more than 160 arrests and sought hundreds more for criminal charges related to the deadly Jan. 6 assault. Authorities have also linked roughly 30 defendants to a group or movement, according to an AP review of court records.

That includes seven defendants linked to QAnon, a once-fringe internet conspiracy movement that recently grew into a powerful force in mainstream conservative politics; six linked to the Proud Boys, a misogynistic, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic group with ties to white supremacism; four linked to the Oath Keepers, a paramilitary organization that recruits current and former military, law enforcement and first-responder personnel; four linked to the Three Percenters, an anti-government militia movement; and two leaders of “Super Happy Fun America,” a group with ties to white nationalists known for organizing a so-called “straight pride” parade in downtown Boston in 2019.

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Bipartisan critics of Trump have blamed him for inciting the attack on the Capitol, which some far-right groups have declared a success and are using as a recruitment tool to grow membership, according to the SPLC.

The final year of the Trump presidency, marked by a wide-ranging reckoning over systemic racism, also propelled racist conspiracy theories and white nationalist ideology into the political mainstream, the law center said.

According to an SPLC survey conducted in August, 29 percent of respondents said they personally know someone who believes that white people are the superior race. The poll also found that 51% of Americans thought the looting and vandalism that occurred across the country around Black Lives Matter demonstrations was a bigger problem than excessive force by police.

Protests over the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd last May spurred a push to make the November election a referendum on white supremacy. Nestled in Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud was a reality that turnout among Black and Hispanic voters played a significant role in handing victory to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman and first person of Black and South Asian heritage to hold that office.

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During his inaugural address, Biden issued a strong repudiation of white supremacy and domestic terrorism, which is rare for such consequential speeches.

The SPLC made several recommendations for the new administration in its latest report. It called for establishing offices within the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI to monitor, investigate and prosecute cases of domestic terrorism. It also urged improving federal hate crime data collection, training, and prevention; and for enacting federal legislation that shifts funding away from punishment models and toward preventing violent extremism.

People who support or express hatred and bigotry are not always card-carrying members of far-right groups. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be activated into violence, said Christian Picciolini, a former far-right extremist and founder of the Free Radicals Project, a group that helps people disengage from hate organizations.

It also doesn’t mean that they can’t be reached and deradicalized, he said.

“We have to have kind of a dual approach to stop what’s happening now, but also to make sure that we are not creating a problem for us in the future, to understand how the propaganda is spread that is recruiting these people,” Picciolini said.

“Right now, it’s in a very self-service format online,” he added. “We’re facing a really big problem.”

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South Dakota Lawmakers Revive Bill Decried by LGBTQ Groups

 South Dakota Republican lawmakers on Tuesday revived a proposed law that would ban people from changing the sex designation on their birth certificates, even after a House committee rejected the bill that LGBTQ advocates decried as an attack on transgender people.

Republicans in the House forced the bill to be brought to a vote by the full House through a rarely used legislative procedure known as a “smoke out.” At least one-third of the House supported the procedure.

A committee of lawmakers had earlier Tuesday dismissed the bill on a seven-to-six vote after five Republicans joined two Democrats to oppose the bill, which would stop people from changing the sex listed on birth certificates after one year from birth. The proposal will be delivered to the full chamber for consideration by Wednesday.

Law changes that affect transgender people have become a perennial topic in the South Dakota legislature, although transgender advocates say they are making progress in getting their voices heard and issues understood. A handful of advocates gathered in the pre-dawn cold outside the statehouse on Tuesday, waving rainbow and transgender flags.

“I want transgender people to know they have a home here, a family here,” said Seymour Otterman, a nonbinary transgender person who testified to lawmakers on their experience living in the state.

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The legislative efforts to address transgender issues were spearheaded by Rep. Fred Deutsch, a Watertown Republican who introduced this year’s proposal. After the bill was rejected in committee, he said he had heard from fellow Republicans that they would like to debate and vote on the bill in a meeting of the full House.

Deutsch pushed a bill last year that would have banned puberty blockers and gender confirmation surgery for transgender children under 16. And in 2016, he introduced a bill that would have limited the bathrooms and locker rooms that transgender students can use.

Other Republican lawmakers have pushed the state’s high school athletics association to reconsider its policy of allowing transgender students to compete as the gender with which they identify.

But Deutsch’s efforts have increasingly struggled to gain traction: His 2016 bill cleared the House and Senate before being vetoed by former Gov. Dennis Daugaard, a Republican; his bill last year passed the House before being halted by a Senate committee; this year’s bill failed to clear its first hurdle in the House and had to be revived by the “smoke out” procedure.

Deutsch defended his efforts, saying he was not motivated by hate but by social importance.

He argued that the state’s judges have struggled with how to handle requests from people who want to change the sex on their birth certificates and that keeping vital records on sex is an important aspect of government business.

“Either biology matters or it doesn’t,” he said.

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South Dakota courts have received 11 requests for updates to the sex listed on birth certificates since 2017, according to the court system.

Rep. Kevin Jensen, a Canton Republican who supported the bill, said he doesn’t feel it discriminates against transgender people, and that a birth certificate serves as an objective record of someone’s sex at birth.

But LGBTQ people see Deutch’s efforts as an attack intended to send a message that they are not welcome in a state dominated by conservative politics. They warned that barring people from updating their birth certificates was dangerous, exposing them to violence, hate and discrimination. They could be unwillingly exposed as transgender when they apply for jobs, housing or health care.

“It’s incredibly disrespectful that we have to address this every year. It’s infuriating,” said Rep. Erin Healy, a Democrat from Sioux Falls. “We are disrupting the lives of a vulnerable population, and I think what we are missing today is empathy and compassion.”

Opponents to the bill pointed out that similar bans, such as a 2018 law passed in Idaho, have been struck down by federal courts as unconstitutional. LGBTQ advocates have also pointed to President Joe Biden’s order reversing a Trump-era Pentagon policy largely barring transgender people from military service as a sign that the federal government is taking a stronger approach to protections for transgender people.

Otterman said Deutsch’s proposed ban did not come as a surprise, even though they are struck by increasing waves of anger and sadness each January when the bills come.

“In most places in South Dakota, it is a very lonely, isolating experience because of this sentiment,” they said.

Healy said bills that delve into transgender issues can be harmful, even if they often fail.

“It’s an emotional roller coaster,” Healy said. “To be so happy and relieved that it died, only to see it resurrected and have that threat all over again.”

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Group of U.S. Catholic Bishops Urges Support for LGBTQ Youth

Declaring “God is on your side,” a Roman Catholic cardinal, an archbishop and six other U.S. bishops issued a statement Monday expressing support for LGBTQ youth and denouncing the bullying often directed at them.

“All people of goodwill should help, support and defend LGBT youth,” said the statement released by the Tyler Clementi Foundation, named for the Rutgers University student who took his own life in 2010 after being recorded on a webcam kissing another man.

Among those signing the statement were Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, and Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

According to Catholic teaching, gays and lesbians should be respected, loved and not discriminated against, but homosexual activity is considered “intrinsically disordered.” The church leadership in the U.S. vigorously opposes same-sex marriage and has not supported efforts to boost acceptance of transgender people.

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The bishops’ statement said LGBTQ youth attempt suicide at much higher rates, are often homeless because of families who reject them and “are the target of violent acts at alarming rates.”

“We take this opportunity to say to our LGBT friends, especially young people, that we stand with you and oppose any form of violence, bullying or harassment directed at you,” it read. “Most of all, know that God created you, God loves you and God is on your side.

Along with Tobin and Wester, the statement was signed by Bishops John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky; Robert McElroy of San Diego; Steven Biegler of Cheyenne, Wyoming; and Edward Weisenberger of Tucson, Arizona, as well as two retired auxiliary bishops, Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit and Dennis Madden of Baltimore.

After the statement was issued, another auxiliary bishop, John Dolan of San Diego, also endorsed it.

The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest whose book “Building a Bridge” advocates for greater LGBTQ inclusion in the Catholic church, hailed the statement as “an historic step forward.”

“It’s a reminder that Jesus always stood on the side of the persecuted,” Martin said, expressing hope that more of the country’s over 400 active and retired bishops would endorse the statement.

Stowe and Wester had been scheduled to attend a conference last June, organized by Martin, to address LGBTQ inclusion in the church, but it was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Among those welcoming the bishops’ declaration was Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage.

″I am appreciative of this reaffirmation of the Church’s care for those who are struggling with sexual identity issues, especially when they are targets of bullying and suffer rejection even from the very ones who should love and support them,” he said via email. “The Church stands in solidarity with them, and all of her children, to help them live a life of virtue.”

The country of late has seen mixed messages, for transgender youth in particular, in terms of acceptance.

President Joe Biden on Monday signed an executive order rescinding former President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender people joining the military.

In more than a dozen Republican-governed states, meanwhile, lawmakers have proposed bills that would bar young transgender people from playing on school sports teams that reflect their gender identity or from obtaining certain types of gender-related medical treatments.

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California Lifts Virus Stay-at-home Orders, Curfew Statewide

California lifted regional stay-at-home orders across the state Monday in response to improving coronavirus conditions, returning the state to a system of county-by-county restrictions, state health officials announced.

The order had been in place in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California, covering the majority of the state’s counties. The change will allow businesses such as restaurants to resume outdoor operations in many areas, though local officials could choose to continue stricter rules. The state is also lifting a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew.

“Together, we changed our activities knowing our short-term sacrifices would lead to longer-term gains. COVID-19 is still here and still deadly, so our work is not over, but it’s important to recognize our collective actions saved lives and we are turning a critical corner,” Dr. Tomas Aragon, the state’s public health director, said in a statement.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to address the public later Monday.

The decision comes with improving trends in the rate of infections, hospitalizations and intensive care unit capacity as well as vaccinations.

Newsom imposed the stay-at-home order in December as coronavirus cases worsened. Under the system, a multi-county region had to shut down most businesses and order people to stay home if ICU capacity dropped below 15%. An 11-county Northern California region was never under the order. The Greater Sacramento Region exited the order last week. The state makes the decisions based on four-week projections showing ICU capacity improving, but officials have not disclosed the data behind the forecasts.

During the weekend, San Francisco Bay Area ICU capacity surged to 23% while the San Joaquin Valley increased to 1.3%, its first time above zero. The huge Southern California region, the most populous, remains at zero ICU capacity.

Early last year, the state developed a system of color-coded tiers that dictated the level of restrictions on businesses and individuals based on virus conditions in each of California’s 58 counties. Most counties will now go back to the most restrictive purple tier, which allows for outdoor dining, hair and nail salons to be open, and outdoor church services. Bars that only serve beverages cannot be open.

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FDA Approves 1st Long-acting HIV Drug Combo, Monthly Shots

U.S. regulators have approved the first long-acting drug combo for HIV, monthly shots that can replace the daily pills now used to control infection with the AIDS virus.

Thursday’s approval of the two-shot combo called Cabenuva is expected to make it easier for people to stay on track with their HIV medicines and to do so with more privacy. It’s a huge change from not long ago, when patients had to take multiple pills several times a day, carefully timed around meals.

Vials of the HIV treatment Cabenuva.
Vials of the HIV treatment Cabenuva.ViiV Healthcare via AP

“That will enhance quality of life” to need treatment just once a month, said Dr. Steven Deeks, an HIV specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, who has no ties to the drug’s makers. “People don’t want those daily reminders that they’re HIV infected.”

Cabenuva combines rilpivirine, sold as Edurant by Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen unit, and a new drug — cabotegravir, from ViiV Healthcare. They’re packaged together and given as separate shots once a month. Dosing every two months also is being tested.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Cabenuva for use in adults who have had their disease well controlled by conventional HIV medicines and who have not shown signs of viral resistance to the two drugs in Cabenuva.

The agency also approved a pill version of cabotegravir to be taken with rilpivarine for a month before switching to the shots to be sure the drugs are well tolerated.

ViiV said the shot combo would cost $5,940 for an initial, higher dose and $3,960 per month afterward. The company said that is “within the range” of what one-a-day pill combos cost now. How much a patient pays depends on insurance, income and other things.

Studies found that patients greatly preferred the shots.

“Even people who are taking one pill once a day just reported improvement in their quality of life to switch to an injection,” said Dr. Judith Currier, an HIV specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles. She consults for ViiV and wrote a commentaryaccompanying one study of the drug in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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Deeks said long-acting shots also give hope of reaching groups that have a hard time sticking to treatment, including people with mental illness or substance abuse problems.

“There’s a great unmet need” that the shots may fill, he said.

Separately, ViiV plans to seek approval for cabotegravir for HIV prevention. Two recent studies found that cabotegravir shots every two months were better than daily Truvada pills for keeping uninfected people from catching the virus from an infected sex partner.

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California Becomes First State to Top 3 Million COVID-19 cases

California on Monday became the first state to record more than 3 million known coronavirus infections.

The grim milestone, as tallied by Johns Hopkins University, wasn’t entirely unexpected in a state with 40 million residents but its speed stunning. The state only reached 2 million reported cases on Dec. 24.

The first coronavirus case in California was confirmed last Jan. 25. It took 292 days to get to 1 million infections on Nov. 11 and 44 days to top 2 million.

California’s caseload is also far ahead of other large states. Texas had more than 2 million and Florida topped 1.5 million.

The state has recorded more than 33,600 deaths related to COVID-19.

A caseload surge that began last fall has strained hospitals and especially intensive care units as a percentage of the infected — typically estimated to be around 12% by public health officials — become sick enough weeks later to need medical care.

On average, California has seen about 500 deaths and 40,000 new cases daily for the past two weeks.

Officials warn that a recent slight downward trend in hospitalizations could reverse when the full impact of New Year’s Eve gathering transmissions is felt.

The state is placing its hopes on mass vaccinations to reduce the number of infections but there have been snags in the immunization drive. On Sunday, Dr. Erica S. Pan, the state epidemiologist, urged that providers stop using one lot of a Moderna vaccine because some people needed medical treatment for possible severe allergic reactions.

More than 330,000 doses from lot 41L20A arrived in California between Jan. 5 and Jan. 12 and were distributed to 287 providers, she said.

In Northern California, Stanislaus County health officials responded by announcing they wouldn’t be holding vaccination clinics until further notice.

“Out of an extreme abundance of caution and also recognizing the extremely limited supply of vaccine, we are recommending that providers use other available vaccine inventory” pending completion of an investigation by state officials, Moderna, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the federal Food and Drug Administration, Pan said in a statement.

Fewer than 10 people, who all received the vaccine at the same community site, needed medical attention over a 24-hour period, Pan said. No other similar clusters were found.

Pan did not specify the number of cases involved or where they occurred.

Six San Diego health care workers had allergic reactions to vaccines they received at a mass vaccination center on Jan. 14. The site was temporarily closed and is now using other vaccines, KTGV-TV reported.

Moderna in a statement said the company “is unaware of comparable adverse events from other vaccination centers which may have administered vaccines from the same lot.”

The CDC has said COVID-19 vaccines can cause side effects for a few days that include fever, chills, headache, swelling or tiredness, “which are normal signs that your body is building protection.”

However, severe reactions are extremely rare. Pan said in a vaccine similar to Moderna’s, the rate of anaphylaxis — in which an immune system reaction can block breathing and cause blood pressure to drop — was about 1 in 100,000.

The announcement came as California counties continue to plead for more COVID-19 vaccine as the state tries to tamp down its rate of infection, which has resulted in record numbers of hospitalizations and deaths.

California has shipped about about 3.2 million doses of the vaccine — which requires two doses for full immunization — to local health departments and health care systems, the state’s Department of Public Health reported Monday.

Only about 1.4 million of those doses, or around 40%, have been administered.

So far, the state has vaccinated fewer than 2,500 people per 100,000 residents, a rate that falls well below the national average, according to federal data.

Although Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that anyone age 65 and older would be eligible to start receiving the vaccine, Los Angeles County and some others have said they do not have enough doses to vaccinate that many people and are first concentrating on inoculating health care workers and the most vulnerable elderly living in care homes.

The death rate from COVID-19 in Los Angeles County — the nation’s most populous and an epicenter of the state pandemic — works out to about one person every six minutes.

On Sunday, the South Coast Air Quality Management District suspended some pollution-control limits on the number of cremations for at least 10 days in order to deal with a backlog of bodies at hospitals and funeral homes.

“The current rate of death is more than double that of pre-pandemic years,” the agency said.

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California Passes 25,000 Deaths, Finds 3 More Variant Cases

California surpassed 25,000 coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic and officials disclosed Thursday that three more cases involving a mutant variant of the virus have been confirmed in San Diego County.

The grim developments came as an ongoing surge swamps hospitals and pushes nurses and doctors to the breaking point as they brace for another likely increase after the holidays.

“We’re exhausted and it’s the calm before the storm,” said Jahmaal Willis, a nurse and emergency room leader at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley. “It’s like we’re fighting a war, a never-ending war, and we’re running out of ammo. We have to get it together before the next fight.”

Public health officials continued to plead with residents just hours before the start of 2021 not to gather for New Year’s Eve celebrations.

In Los Angeles County, where an average of six people die every hour from COVID-19, the Department of Public Health tweeted out snippets every 10 minutes on lives that have been lost.

“The hair stylist who worked for 20 years to finally open her own shop.”

“A grandmother who loved to sing to her grandchildren.”

“The bus driver who put her daughter through college and was beaming with pride.”

The tweets, which included messages to wear a mask, physically distance, stay home and “Slow the spread. Save a life,” came on a day when the county reported a record 290 deaths. That would be a rate of one death every five minutes, though it included a backlog.

Los Angeles County, which has a quarter of the state’s 40 million residents, has had 40% of the deaths in California, the third state to reach the 25,000 death count. New York has had nearly 38,000 deaths, and Texas has had more than 27,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Infections are spreading rapidly. San Diego County confirmed Thursday that it had found a total of four cases of the virus variant that appears to be more contagious. A 30-year-old man tested positive for the variant on Wednesday and three more men — two in their 40s and one in his 50s — also have been confirmed to have the strain. Other cases involving the variant have been confirmed in Florida and Colorado.

At least two of the men in San Diego County hadn’t traveled outside of the country and none had “any known interaction with each other,” the county said. Officials believed many more cases will surface.

San Diego County also reported a record high number of new deaths in a single day at 62, well over the previous record of 39 reported only a week earlier.

Hospitals, particularly in Southern California and the agricultural San Joaquin Valley in the middle of the state, have been overrun with virus patients and don’t have any more intensive care unit beds for COVID-19 patients.

In Los Angeles County, hospitals have been pushed “to the brink of catastrophe,” said Dr. Christina Ghaly, health services director. “This is simply not sustainable. Not just for our hospitals, for our entire health system.”

Cathy Chidester, director of the county’s Emergency Medical Services Agency, said hospitals are facing problems with oxygen with so many COVID-19 patients needing it because they are struggling to breathe. Older hospitals are having difficulty maintaining oxygen pressure in aging infrastructure and some are scrambling to locate additional oxygen tanks for discharged patients to take home.

Ambulances are being forced to wait in bays as long as eight hours before they can transfer patients inside hospitals — and in some cases, doctors are treating patients inside ambulances, she said.

At Providence St. Mary Medical Center, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, there is a cacophany of alarms that sound when a patient’s heart stops and a constant hiss from the oxygen keeping so many alive, Willis said. The hospital has filled the triage area with beds and is assessing new arrivals in the parking lot. Three dozen patients were waiting to be admitted.

“We’re overflowing,” Willis said. “We’re treating patients in chairs, we’re treating patients in the hallways.”

In Santa Clara County, home to Silicon Valley, only 8% of ICU beds were available, which is better than many places. Hospitals are still “stretched to the limit,” said Dr. Ahmad Kamal, county director of healthcare preparedness.

Two months ago, the county had 4.5 cases per 100,000 people. Now it has 50 cases per 100,000.

“What we are seeing now is not normal,” Kamal said. “It is an order of magnitude more than we saw just two months ago. We are not out of the woods. We are in the thick of the woods. And we all need to redouble our efforts.”

Kamal said the one bit of good news was that hospitals hadn’t felt the additional pressure of new cases after Christmas that they did after Thanksgiving, which has led to the current surge.

But public health officials fear a double-whammy from people who gathered at Christmas and New Year’s will create a surge upon a surge. They made their final pleas to persuade people to stay home on what is typically one of the biggest party nights of the year.

“We recognize the temptation and the frustration,” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said. “You may simply want to stray for one night to celebrate with friends. However, all it takes is one slip to have one exposure and the coronavirus has found another host, another victim, and our dangerous surge continues.”

Most of the state is under a 10 p.m. curfew and newly extended restrictions that have closed or reduced capacity of businesses. People people are being urged to stay home as much as possible to try to slow the spread of infections.

Police in Los Angeles will be patrolling streets and looking to shut down large New Year’s Eve gatherings, Mayor Eric Garcetti said. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria issued an executive order directing stricter enforcement of state and local public health rules.

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