Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti says Dodger Stadium delivered 7,730 Covid-19 vaccines on Wednesday; Probably more “than anywhere in the country, if not the world”

Speaking of Dodger Stadium, which he proposed to be the country – and possibly the world – “Covid-19’s largest vaccination site,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that Los Angeles’s five vaccination sites have administered vaccines for more than 80,000 people. The mayor said that on Wednesday alone, the facilities at Dodger Stadium delivered an impressive 7,730 shots.

“The last person who left here, I think about 11 [p.m.]”, Said the mayor, indicating that, with the lines still meandering through the parking lot, those responsible for the place decided to keep the gates working beyond closing hours. We probably give more vaccines here than anywhere in the county, if not the world.

Longer term

Garcetti also revealed that, by the end of tomorrow, LA will have finished vaccinating all residents of specialized wards.

These are significant achievements, but they did not go smoothly.

Garcetti admitted that many at Dodger Stadium waited hours on Wednesday to be vaccinated. An elderly man told Deadline he waited four hours in line. Although the mayor insisted that the waiting time on Thursday was no more than an hour and averaged about 30-40 minutes, he apologized to those who waited on Wednesday.

Still, Garcetti encouraged Angelenos to fill up his cars, bring snacks and use the bathroom before getting in line at Dodger Stadium.

One resident who probably didn’t have to wait four hours was former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who tweeted a video of his vaccination at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday. Arnold said, “I’ve never been happier to wait in line.”

The site’s initial goal was to deliver 12,000 doses a day, and Garcetti indicated that that is still the goal – it should be. Garcetti said that at the current rate of vaccination in Los Angeles, all health professionals and the elderly would not be vaccinated until June, if the rate did not increase.

The story continues

Garcetti indicated that there are currently two lines of cars passing through Dodger Stadium. The plan is to add a third row to make things faster.

He appealed to state and federal officials for more doses before saying: “Demand still exceeds supply. We are still waiting to know how many doses are coming. “

Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said on Wednesday that the county expects to receive about 143,900 more doses of vaccines next week. However, since people need to receive two
doses of the medication, at intervals of three to four weeks, most of the vaccine that will arrive next week will be used to administer second doses to people who have already received their first injection.

She estimated that only 37,900 of the doses that will come next week will be available for people to receive their first dose.

“This is what I mean by a serious supply problem,” she said. “We are simply not getting enough doses of vaccine to move as fast as we and you would like.”

She said that, by the end of last week, the municipality had received 685,000 doses, with 307,000 used so far for the first doses and 87,000 for the second. The county is still working to complete the vaccination of hundreds of thousands of health professionals with the remaining doses, while expanding access to people aged 65 and over this week.

LA County Public Health confirmed 262 new deaths and 8,512 new confirmed Covid-19 cases on Thursday. “The last time we had two days with less than 10,000 cases was in early December,” noted the mayor. “This is progress.”

On Thursday, 7,263 people were hospitalized with Covid-19. Garcetti said it is 7% less than last week.

Last week, the seven-day average of new cases was 15,182. This week, the average number of cases over seven days was 10,560, a reduction of 30%.

The City News Service contributed to this report.

Best of time

Sign up for the Deadline Bulletin. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.