COVID: Vaccine In Short Supply At New Levi's Stadium Mass Vaccination Site
SANTA CLARA (KPIX) -- Levi's Stadium, the site of the state's largest mass COVID-19 vaccination site, wrapped up its first day by vaccinating a little more than 500 eligible county residents Tuesday. That's a lot fewer than the initial hope of inoculating 5,000 residents per day before ramping it up to 15,000 per day.
"My hope is that we can be at that number by the end of next month, but it's all entirely dependent upon the vaccine supply," said Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Associate Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Tong.
The lack of supply is to blame for the number of people who will be vaccinated in the county each day. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who made an appearance at Levi's Stadium ahead of the clinic's opening, made mention of the scarcity of doses. As did the county board of supervisors during their regular meeting Tuesday afternoon.
"Each Tuesday night we find out how much vaccine we'll have for the next week so the ability to increase that (the number of vaccinations per day) further will be dependent on our vaccine allocation," said Tong.
The doctor said they already plan to increase vaccinations Wednesday by inoculating 1,000 residents.
Dr. Tong said among all of the county's sites there are 40,000 appointments already scheduled for next week, but there could be cancellations if the county doesn't receive enough doses.
Some residents, including Tom Han's mother, said it's happened to them. But in this case, it was her doctor who cancelled her appointment, because of lack of supply.
"She's a Kaiser member, but they sent her an email saying they didn't have any vaccines even though we had an appointment so we had to find this secondary venue and this was it," said Han. "Santa Clara county came through."
Despite the issue of supply, Tong said the first day of vaccinations at Levi's went smoothly and efficiently.
The process includes getting through security before registration, immunization and then observation.
"That's a beautiful site to get a shot at, that's for sure," said Perry Strongin. "They do it at the top level so you get a great view of the field and the whole facility."
