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Five major COVID-19 vaccination sites are set to open next week in Los Angeles County as public health officials speed up preparations for an expected increase in demand following this week’s expansion of the list of vaccine eligibility for residents 65 years of age and over.
The sites are Pomona Fairplex, The Forum in Inglewood, Cal State Northridge, the LA County Office of Education in Downey, and Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia.
The openings come at a crucial time. Although residents 65 and older are now on the priority vaccine list, they cannot receive the vaccines until the county has first vaccinated some 500,000 health workers. Officials hope to achieve this goal by the end of the month.
“In LA County, we need to vaccinate 10 million people, twice,” said supervisor Janice Hahn. “These large-scale vaccination sites will help us achieve this by massively increasing our ability to vaccinate people quickly and effectively.”
Each site should vaccinate 4,000 people per day. Appointments and proof of employment in the healthcare industry will be required to get the vaccine, the county said. All five sites are expected to remain open for at least four weeks. They are managed separately from the city’s Dodger Stadium vaccination site.
Uncertainty remains as to whether the county will receive sufficient doses to meet its goals.
“We’re not done with our healthcare workers,” LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Wednesday, adding that the county has asked the state for more doses. “We have not received a response from the state regarding the availability of vaccines and how they would be distributed.”
The need for more vaccines has echoed in other countries. To date, the state has received more than 2.9 million doses of the vaccine and administered less than a third.
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