California Opens Vaccine Site at Levi's Stadium, Home of San Francisco 49ers

California is adding mass inoculation sites even as the shortage of coronavirus vaccine has local officials restricting who gets shots, with Los Angeles County saying it will limit new vaccinations to ensure second doses are available to those already in line for them.

Santa Clara County and the San Francisco 49ers said Friday they will open California’s largest vaccination site at Levi’s Stadium early next week. It eventually will be capable of injecting up to 15,000 people a day.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, announced troops will start arriving in a little over a week to run a new site at California State University, Los Angeles opening Feb. 16. Other federal employees will head to a second 6,000-shots-a-day site at Oakland-Alameda Coliseum.

In California, however, the problem isn’t vaccination capacity, it’s limited vaccine supply that is forcing rationing. For example, while the state has said anyone 65 and over can get vaccinated, until Friday Southern California’s Riverside County was only serving people 80 and over at the sites it operates.

In Los Angeles County, home to 10 million residents, starting next Tuesday the five mass vaccination sites it runs will only give second doses.

“We’re just struggling with the supply, the limited supply, and feeling an obligation to make sure that people who have had a first dose are able to get their second dose,” Dr. Paul Simon, the county’s chief science officer, said during a briefing.

The county’s five so-called mega-pods are among more than 360 vaccination sites countywide, including ones run by the city of Los Angeles, pharmacies and clinics. The county has administered more than 1 million doses so far, Simon said. More than 846,000 were first doses.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, Napa County stopped giving first doses to preserve its remaining supply for those who are ready for second shots. Pfizer and Moderna each say two shots are required for their vaccines to be most effective.

Napa County Supervisor Alfredo Pedroza said officials are now having to “manage the expectations” of the 27,000 people who took the first dose and another 46,000 who have made appointments and are waiting to get the first shot.

“We’re getting a lot of the questions from community members asking, ‘is my second dose in jeopardy?’ And right now, we don’t have an answer,” Pedroza said. “There’s a lot of frustration, there’s a lot of emotion because there’s been a lot of mixed messages.”

Andrew Noymer, a public health professor at the University of California, Irvine, said ensuring second doses is the right move.

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