As if getting a Covid test wasn’t difficult and frustrating enough this week, imagine showing up to a testing site only to find the place had been burgled and shut down for the day.
The Eastsider relates this exact situation as it occurred last week on Reservoir Street in Echo Park, where thieves broke into two large metal containers to steal equipment at one of the free testing sites operated and overseen by Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE), the non-profit Sean Penn co-founded in the wake of Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake, which has given out more than 2.5 million vaccines and nearly 6 million tests around the world.
The burglary happened overnight, with numerous pieces of electronic equipment gaffoled, possibly iPads according to an unconfirmed Twitter post, but not any testing materials themselves. While detectives search for surveillance footage of the theft, CORE’s benevolent efforts continue, and have even increased in the last week as Omicron continues its orgy across America.
First, it was Gucci bags, Dior facial cream, and your Christmas gifts for grandma that L.A. thieves were smashing and grabbing their way to get at. Now it appears even our efforts to fight Covid themselves are at risk of being plundered, as has been seen in other parts of the world, be they thefts of supplies or local vaccination card scams.
Just another reminder of humans' inhumanity towards other humans, in case you weren’t quite ready to bid "adios" to 2021 just yet.
