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California is transforming Disneyland into a mass distribution site for vaccines as the rise in coronavirus overwhelms hospitals and sets a new deadly record in the state.
Orange County officials said the Disneyland resort, located in Anaheim, would become the first of five “super distribution points” (super POD) sites capable of vaccinating thousands of people every day.
Doug Chaffee, the Orange County supervisor, said in a statement that the super POD sites would be “absolutely essential to stop this deadly virus”.
The change comes as California’s Covid-19 death toll reached 30,000 on Monday, a surprising number that underscored the virus’s vast acceleration this winter. It took six months for the country’s most populous state to reach 10,000 deaths, but only a month to jump from 20,000 to 30,000 deaths.
The state governor, Gavin Newsom, and public health officials are counting on widespread vaccinations to control new infections, starting with medical workers and the most vulnerable elderly, such as those in nursing homes.
Newsom acknowledged that vaccine distribution has been very slow and he promised that 1 million vaccines will be administered this week, more than double what has been done so far.
Alongside Disneyland, the state is also planning to turn baseball stadiums and fairs into vaccination centers – including Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Petco Park in San Diego and the CalExpo fairground in Sacramento. In the bay area, Oakland Coliseum and Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara are also being considered sites for mass vaccination.
This effort will require what Newsom called a “hands-on approach”, including vaccinations dispensed by pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, dentists, paramedics and emergency medical technicians and members of the California National Guard.
Cars lined up on Monday morning near the downtown San Diego stadium, where officials intended to inoculate 5,000 health workers daily.
“It’s like a trip to Disneyland,” with cars passing by, said Heather Buschman, a spokeswoman for UC San Diego Health, whose medical team was administering the injections.
She said people looked forward to being vaccinated, with more than 12,500 health workers in San Diego County making appointments initially.
Los Angeles County has emerged as the center of the winter wave, accounting for about 40% of deaths related to the state’s virus. On Monday, nearly 8,000 people were hospitalized in Los Angeles County, which had less than 50 intensive care units available in an area with a population of 10 million, said Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of Health Services. county.
Barbara Ferrer, director of public health for Los Angeles, said they predicted an increase in cases after the New Year holiday and that Covid-19 is still killing someone in the county every eight minutes on average.
Lawmakers also continued to plead with people to maintain social distance to slow the spread of the infection. In Los Angeles County, residents were encouraged to wear masks even when they were at home, if they regularly went out and lived with someone who was elderly or at high risk.
“To die of Covid in the hospital means to die alone,” said the chairman of the county supervisory board, Hilda Solis. “Visitors are not allowed in hospitals for their own safety. Families are sharing their final farewells on tablets and cell phones. “
“One of the most moving conversations that our healthcare professionals share is about those last words, when children apologize to their parents and grandparents for bringing Covid into their homes, for making them sick,” said Solis. “And these excuses are just some of the last words that loved ones will hear.”