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The COVID-19 vaccine superstation near Petco Park will close again on Saturday due to a severe dose shortage.
UC San Diego Health is exploiting the superstation, and CEO Patty Maysent told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the shutdown will last all weekend and through Tuesday, which means the site will reopen no earlier than Wednesday.
Anyone with an appointment during this time will receive a message through MyChart, the health system’s electronic notification system, and will be automatically rescheduled as soon as UCSD knows more vaccines are on their way. For now, Maysent says, the plan is to postpone all appointments by four days, but the actual time frame could be longer (or a little shorter) depending on the offer.
“It’s really difficult,” she said. “Getting the vaccine is the antidote to the worst exhaustion you can imagine. It was hard for everyone. In particular, it is hard on the patients.
The health care system has been in contact with state and county authorities, looking for all the doses it can receive – including doses in other counties that don’t go up in arms quickly. Maysent added that on Friday, UCSD moved more than 6,000 doses of its own supply to the Petco Park site and used more than 10,000 of its own doses to run the superstation in recent weeks.
This will be the third shutdown of the superstation, which has immunized more than 119,000 San Diegans – about two in nine people who have been vaccinated in the county.
Other superstations and smaller sites scattered around the area will continue to operate, according to county spokesperson Mike Workman.
The shutdown marks a sharp reversal in the optimism county officials projected during the weekly coronavirus briefing. COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continued to decline, with the county closing in on the return of outdoor sports to high school – and, soon after, limited use of restaurants and indoor gyms.
“This is one of the first times that I feel like we’re presenting to you a bunch of things that are generally good news,” Supervisor Fletcher said at the start of Wednesday’s briefing.
This good news included an announcement that the San Diegans were working in emergency services; child care and education; and food and agriculture would be eligible for a coronavirus vaccine from Saturday.
About 500,000 people belong to these groups, from farm workers to security personnel and daycare centers. And while many of them will be vaccinated through targeted outreach programs, the county confirmed Thursday that soon-to-be-eligible San Diegans can schedule appointments at the more than 20 vaccination sites spread across the county.
But finding a date won’t be easy, as the closure of the Petco Park superstation underscores a frustrating fact: demand for vaccines continues to outstrip supply.
The county’s current supply is a priority for those San Diegans who need their second doses, as it takes two injections of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to maximize immunity to the coronavirus.
According to the county’s Vaccine Dashboard, as of noon Friday, about 321,000 San Diegans have received their first vaccine but still need their second dose. Until they get both snaps, many of the newly eligible band members will have a hard time making appointments.
The timing for completing the second doses, of course, depends on the vaccine supply. It’s unclear when the county’s next batch of Moderna vaccine will arrive. On Wednesday, Fletcher said the county was fortunate to know how many vaccines would arrive in three days – not to mention the three-week projections President Joe Biden promised states and territories.
There has been considerable confusion over the exact number of doses available in the county. The Times of San Diego reported on Friday that the county had nearly 100,000 doses available to administer and had recently received a large shipment of new doses. But Workman told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the county had not received such a shipment and that there were already appointments for all “ available ” doses shown on the county’s dashboard.
In other words, this offer is spoken.
Other local health systems are also struggling. Scripps Health operates vaccination clinics for its own patients and operates the superstation Del Mar Fairgrounds. But it is difficult to sustain these efforts without a steady flow of vaccines, says Dr Ghazala Sharieff, the health system’s chief medical officer for clinical excellence and experience.
“How do you plan something when you’re not allowed to have leftovers (doses) but don’t know what you’re going to get next week?” Said Sharieff. “I don’t care what you’re going to give me – just give it to me in advance, so I can plan each day and be a little more logical.”
UT staff editor Paul Sisson contributed reporting.
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