LOS ANGELES (AP) – The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to shut down two mass vaccination sites in California next month, just days before the state makes everyone 16 and over eligible for an injection.
The two locations in Oakland and Los Angeles opened in February for an eight-week pilot program that ends on April 11. The sites will switch from the Pfizer vaccine to Johnson & Johnson, which requires only one injection, during the final two weeks of operation so people don’t have to sign up for a second dose elsewhere.
State and city officials said they would like the program to continue, although it provided a small fraction of California’s general photos. Each site has been set up to vaccinate 6,000 people a day, but they are administering up to 7,500 vaccines a day, according to the state’s Emergency Services Office. Since the locations are administered by the federal government, these photos are separate from California’s general weekly allocation, which now stands at around 1.8 million photos per week.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday that the state will allow all people over 16 to be eligible for the vaccine from April 15. At the moment, people aged 65 and over, young people with certain health conditions and rural workers, teachers and various other occupations are eligible. The state is expecting a much larger supply of doses soon.
The two sites combined administered half a million doses, with about 67% going to underprivileged communities and people of color, according to OES.
Brian Ferguson, an agency spokesman, said the state is working with Los Angeles and Alameda counties to see if they can continue to put the Oakland Coliseum and California State University sites in Los Angeles to use. The state asked for the program to be extended, but it was not granted.
“We made it clear that California is ready to continue the mission if more funding and vaccines are allocated by the federal government,” he said.
Los Angeles County and city officials are discussing maintenance of the site in some way, said Dr. Paul Simon, Los Angeles County Science Director.
“Although we are disappointed, we understand,” he said of the site closing.
It has not yet been determined whether the campus would remain a site or whether its vaccines would be distributed to smaller community sites.
“We recognize that it is a really important place,” said Simon, adding that officials do not want to reduce the vaccine infrastructure while more supply is on the way.
Representatives from the Alameda County Department of Public Health, Mayor Libby Schaaf of Oakland and the chairman of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, Keith Carson, did not respond to requests for comment on the closure of the Oakland site.
Frank Mansell, a FEMA spokesman, said that while the sites may continue to operate in some way, the special dose allocation will not continue after April 15. The closure of California sites does not mean that they will open elsewhere, he said.
Sami Gallegos, a spokesman for the California Department of Public Health, said California will continue to pursue its equality goals through other sites. The state has reserved 40% of all doses for people in the poorest neighborhoods, many of whom have been vaccinated in both federal locations. The state has more than 2,000 vaccination sites, she said.
“California’s commitment to equity is much more than just two vaccination sites,” she said.
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This story was first published on March 26, 2021. It was updated on March 27, 2021 to correct that vaccination sites will close on April 11, not April 15. In addition, it corrects Frank Mansell’s surname. It’s Mansell, not Mancel.
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Associated Press writer Adam Beam contributed from Sacramento.