California adds mass vaccination site despite supply shortage

Sacramento, CA-California is adding mass vaccination sites, despite local authorities limiting gunners due to a shortage of coronavirus vaccines. Los Angeles County will limit new vaccinations to ensure that those already in line receive a second vaccination.

Santa Clara County and the San Francisco 49ers announced on Friday that they would open California’s largest vaccination facility at Levi’s Stadium early next week. Ultimately, you will be able to inject up to 15,000 people a day.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has announced that troops will begin arriving in just over a week to operate a new site at California State University in Los Angeles, which will open on February 16. Other federal officials head to the second site, which has 6,000 shots a day. Oakland-Alameda Coliseum.

But in California, the problem is not vaccination capacity, but limited vaccination forces for distribution. For example, the state says anyone over the age of 65 can be vaccinated, but until Friday, Riverside County, Southern California, serves only people over the age of 80 on its site. did not.

In Los Angeles County, home to 10 million residents, five mass vaccination sites will only give a second dose starting next Tuesday.

“We are suffering from supply and limited supply, and we feel obliged to ensure that those who receive the first dose receive a second dose,” said Dr. Paul Simon, Chief Scientific Officer of the county. I am. ” During the briefing.

The county’s five so-called megapods are one of more than 360 vaccination sites throughout the county, including those operated by the City of Los Angeles, pharmacies and clinics. The county has given more than a million doses so far, Simon said. Over 846,000 were the first doses.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, Napa County has stopped the first dose to maintain the remaining supply for those who are ready for the second shot.Pfizer and Moderna each say they need two shots vaccine Most effective.

Napa County supervisor Alfredo Pedroza said authorities now have to “manage expectations” with 27,000 people who took the first dose and another 46,000 people who have booked and are waiting for the first shot. Stated.

“We have received a lot of questions from members of the community.” Is my second dose at risk? “And so far, there is no answer,” Pedroza said. “There were so many mixed messages, so there were so many frustrations and so many emotions.”

Andrew Neumer, the general public health A professor at the University of California, Irvine, said ensuring a second dose was the right move.

“No one likes to hear that they stopped taking the first dose, but I find it annoying to skip the second dose,” he said. “If the vaccine dose doesn’t increase significantly, it’s more of a problem than messing up who gets the second dose.”

About 4.2 million shots were administered in California.State health Authorities couldn’t immediately tell how many second shots there were to reflect the number of people in the state with a population of about 40 million who were maximally protected from the virus.

As the state’s MyTurn online booking site becomes more widespread and the state turns to insurance giant Blue Shield to implement a new centralized vaccine distribution system, they will soon be able to better track vaccinations. I hope to be

The state’s worst coronavirus surge continues to decline as new virus cases plummet. Currently, the average daily number is about 14,500, a decrease of almost 50% from two weeks ago.

The California Public Health Service has issued a hospital surge order that has postponed some elective surgery and required hospitals to accept patients from other counties with intensive care unit capacity below 15%. Withdrawn.

Deaths are also beginning to decline, but remain very high. An additional 558 were announced on Friday, killing about 3,500 last week.

Governor Gavin Newsom admitted that the first vaccine deployment was unacceptably slow and the state was ranked near the bottom of the nation. Improvements have been seen and the state is currently making an average of 1 million injections per week, but federal supply restrictions mean California’s ability to provide injections far beyond the vaccines available. I will.

With approximately 2 million inhabitants, Northern California’s most populous Santa Clara County plans to use Levi’s Stadium to significantly increase the number of vaccinations. It starts with managing 5,000 shots a day and can triple it as supply increases.

This is the latest long list of mass immunization centers, including Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Petco Park in San Diego, Disneyland in Orange County, the Auckland-Alameda Coliseum, and the Cal Expo State Trade Fair in Sacramento.

Meanwhile, Kaiser Permanente has opened two mass vaccination centers in agreement with the state. One is at the Moscorn Center in San Francisco and the other is at Carpoli Pomona in Los Angeles County, each of which can be given up to 10,000 doses per day.

With so many vaccination sites coming online so quickly, California Public Health Service spokesman Darrell Ng couldn’t even provide a state-wide estimate of capacity.

“These are really fluid numbers,” Ng said in an email.

He offered the hope that one day California would be flooded with so many doses that it would be a problem to administer them instead of getting them.

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Associated Press writers John Anchak, Stephanie Dagio and Bob Jablon of Los Angeles, Olga Rodriguez of San Francisco, Amy Taxine of Orange County, and Julie Watson of San Diego contributed to the story.