Vaccine sites opening at Cal Expo, Dodger Stadium. How California plans to speed up rollout
California is taking steps to ramp up its lagging vaccination efforts, including setting up sites at Sacramento’s Cal Expo, Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium and San Diego’s Petco Park, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday.
“We recognize that the current strategy is not going to get us to where we need to go as quickly as we all need to go,” Newsom said.
California’s rollout has been among the slowest in the nation, according to a tracker maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sacramento County opened a limited vaccination center at Cal Expo last week that has begun delivering shots mainly to front-line hospital and health care workers, by invitation and appointment only, according to Dr. Olivia Kasirye, Sacramento County health officer.
Kasirye said the site is being used as a supplement to inoculations being given at hospitals and a few clinics in Sacramento. The county is coordinating with health care entities to decide which employees should be notified that they can make an appointment for shots at Cal Expo.
While the site is managed by the county, using county nurses, the state’s National Guard is providing logistical support, Kasirye said.
It is not a mass vaccination site for the general public, she said, but its role will evolve as the vaccination program moves forward. For now, the site is not being used for the next group of recipients, which will include teachers and those 75 and older. Kasirye said the county will not likely get to that tier until the end of January or early February.
“Sacramento County Public Health is using its limited allocations and currently vaccinating Phase 1A frontline workers ... through appointments only,” said Brenda Bongiorno, spokeswoman for Sacramento County Health Department. “We are not currently vaccinating the general public at the Cal Expo location and will not be for quite some time. We request (the) general public to not attempt to access the location, for health confidentiality and security purposes.”
It’s not yet clear how many vaccines could be given out at Cal Expo in a day. But at Petco Park in San Diego, a vaccination site opened Monday that aims to vaccinate 5,000 health care workers each day, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Los Angeles officials are aiming to vaccinate up to 12,000 people a day when the Dodger Stadium site is fully operational, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Newsom’s announcement comes as federal officials have pushed for states like California to move faster, even if doing so means vaccinating those lower in priority.
Newsom said the state is having an “all hands on deck” approach to giving as many vaccines as possible, through having 15 National Guard strike teams and letting EMTs and paramedics help give the shots. The state is also discussing having nursing students administer the vaccine, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said.
Local officials can also now start to give vaccines to those in the next tier, such as people 75 and older or teachers and childcare professionals, if they have doses available after inoculating health care workers and long-term care residents, Newsom said. In Sacramento County, for instance, firefighters and paramedics have begun getting the vaccine.
“The idea that our tiering and phases has slowed us down, we’ve certainly begun to address that,” Ghaly said.
Newsom didn’t say when mass vaccinations for those people in the next group will begin. But he did say the state will still need “substantial rounds of doses” before it can begin vaccinating those younger than 65, as well as those who don’t work in fields such as education, food and agriculture, emergency services, transportation and manufacturing.
This story was originally published January 11, 2021 at 1:52 PM with the headline "Vaccine sites opening at Cal Expo, Dodger Stadium. How California plans to speed up rollout."
