While the COVID-19 vaccine substation near Petco Park will reopen on Tuesday, UC San Diego and the county are still waiting for vaccine shipments that have been delayed by winter storms that have swept across much of the U.S.
The news comes at a time when the country is going through another terrible milestone – more than 500,000 Americans died of COVID-19, emphasizing the need for a vaccine to help control the worst pandemic the world has faced in a century.
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18:01, February 22, 2021A San Diego County spokesman initially told the Union-Tribune that the Petco Park superstation would remain closed on Tuesday. UC San Diego, however, released a statement on Monday afternoon saying that the super station will reopen; the story has been corrected to reflect this.
On Monday, the county received 10,000 doses of vaccine, but is waiting for more than 50,000 doses to arrive this week, according to spokesman Mike Workman. The most recent shipment was split equally between Moderna and Pfizer, but most of the late doses in the region are from Moderna.
The Petco Park superstation, managed by UCSD Health, exclusively administers the Moderna vaccine, and UCSD has been sending reprogramming notifications through its electronic health system MyChart.
“We apologize and will automatically reschedule your appointment as soon as the vaccine delivery is confirmed,” says the warning. “You don’t have to take any action to be rescheduled.”
It is not clear whether the reopening of Petco Park was motivated by the arrival of new doses in the region or by the redistribution of current doses. A Scripps Health spokesman said the health care system is returning part of its Modern vaccine supply to assist in the deployment of the region, but the spokesman did not know whether these doses would be used at the Petco Park site.
On Sunday, UCSD Health and the county launched the region’s sixth vaccine superstation at the RIMAC Arena. UCSD has been using the site to inoculate its own patients and staff since February 8, but will now offer vaccinations to San Diegans who are currently eligible, including those aged 65 and over, healthcare professionals and residents and employees of long-term care facilities .
The RIMAC website, also known as North Central Vaccination Superstation, is located at 9730 Hopkins Drive and is open seven days a week, from 7:00 am to 3:00 pm. The place is a place without an elevator with free parking. Like all other vaccination sites in San Diego, you will need to make an appointment, with more information available at vaccinationsuperstationsd.com.
At first, RIMAC will offer only the Pfizer vaccine until Moderna’s delayed shipments arrive, according to a press release released on Sunday.
The Del Mar Fairgrounds superstation, which is also offering only the Pfizer vaccine, announced Monday morning that it had about 600 consultations available for Monday, 800 for Tuesday and 350 for Wednesday, according to a spokesman for Scripps Health, who runs the site.
To make an appointment at the drive-through in Del Mar, visit myturn.ca.gov, the state’s online scheduling system.
Although ongoing San Diego County vaccine delivery problems mean that some people will receive their second dose of vaccine after the recommended three or four week interval for Pfizer and Moderna, respectively, local researchers say the exact timing is less important than making sure you get a second injection, which maximizes immunity against the coronavirus.
With more doses of Pfizer than Moderna at hand in some of the region’s vaccination sites, some San Diegans who received their first injection of Moderna may want to get their second injection from Pfizer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, advise against this, noting that clinical trials that have tested the safety and efficacy of these vaccines have not tested the effects of the mixture and combination.
“Every effort must be made to determine which vaccine was received as the first dose, in order to guarantee the completion of the vaccine series with the same product”, says a consultative document released by the agency on February 10.
The CDC says it is okay to exchange vaccines “in exceptional situations”, such as when someone does not have a record of which vaccine they received for their first dose or the vaccine supply runs out. But with the region’s late doses expected to arrive in days and the CDC saying that you can receive your second dose six weeks after the first – or, if necessary, later – local health systems are following current plans. Spokesmen for Scripps Health and Sharp HealthCare, the two largest systems in the region, said they are offering second-dose Pfizer consultations only to those who received the Pfizer vaccine on their first injection.
Despite the recent slowdown in vaccine release in the region, San Diego’s coronavirus metrics continue to improve. On Monday, the county reported 321 new cases of COVID-19. It is 11 consecutive days that the region has had less than 1,000 cases.
The report also looks at 459 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That would be a big increase if they were new hospitalizations, but they are not. County spokesman Workman clarified that the latest figure reflects an accumulation of patient records of the November and December surge. The COVID-19 daily census, which reports the current number of San Diegans in the hospital with coronavirus infections, dropped to 639. Almost a month ago, the count was 1,528.
There is another number of coronaviruses that are likely to be astonishing: the county reported a negative death from COVID-19 on Monday.
After reviewing their records, county officials determined that a person who died of COVID-19 was, in fact, a resident of Los Angeles County.