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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 after 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 state’s priority vaccine list, they cannot receive the vaccines until the county first immunizes 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.
The county plans to vaccinate about 4,000 people per day at each site. Although the supply is sufficient to do so initially, officials say more is needed to immunize some 500,000 healthcare workers.
“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 3 million doses of the vaccine and has administered about a third.
The rapid expansion of mass vaccination sites is helping ensure the county’s ability to distribute vaccines when supply increases, Kevin McGowan, director of the Emergency Management Office, told The Times on Friday.
“What we’re controlling is our ability to push the product when it gets to us, and that’s what our goal will be to develop the biggest and most robust capacity, so that when we get vaccinations, we have the infrastructure in place. to expel them effectively in a timely manner, ”McGowan said.
“It’s a collaborative experience that would benefit everyone if everyone rowed in the same boat in the same direction,” said McGowan.
The operation also requires a plan to save any remaining doses.
LA County Scientific Director Dr Paul Simon told a press conference on Friday that staff at the five mass vaccination sites launched in the county would be trained to track the flow of traffic to the site and only open the necessary number of vials. .
Each vial contains about five or six doses of the vaccine. Once opened, the time to use or lose is reduced to approximately six hours.
If there is a surplus of vaccines, Simon said staff are also responsible for reaching out to local communities to offer doses to the most vulnerable first.
“We want to prioritize these high risk groups,” he said.
The remaining vaccine can also be given to site volunteers or others in the community to save any remaining doses.
“No vaccine is thrown away,” Simon said. “There have been isolated reports of some vaccines lost at the end of the day… It’s tragic. We don’t want that to happen. We have protocols in place to try to prevent this. But massive amounts of vaccine are certainly not wasted. “
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