California’s largest coronavirus vaccination site will be in the heart of Silicon Valley and home to the San Francisco 49ers.
Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara will serve as a mass vaccination site with an initial capacity of 5,000 shots a day when it opens early next week, eventually rising to 15,000 a day, the 49ers announced Friday in partnership with Santa Clara County.
“We recognize the urgent need for an effective and equitable vaccination effort for our community and are proud to work with Santa Clara County to bring this vaccination site online as quickly and efficiently as possible,” 49ers President Al Guido said in a statement. statement. “We have put all the resources at our disposal to meet this challenge, to ensure that members of the community we live in every day can be vaccinated safely and quickly.”
The Levi’s Stadium site will be operated by the Santa Clara County Department of Public Health and open to all eligible county residents. Earlier this week, the county announced that all residents over the age of 65 were eligible to book their appointments.
“The only way we will go through this pandemic is together, which is why I am excited to see this collaborative approach to vaccinating our residents on a large scale,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Susan Ellenberg said in a statement. “Our county has a history of leading and opening the largest vaccination site in California, in partnership with the 49-year-olds, is just another example.”
Although Levi’s Stadium is not the first sports venue in the state to be used as a vaccination venue, it will be the largest once fully operational. In Southern California, Petco Park and Dodger Stadium were also used to distribute vaccines. When the Dodger Stadium site was launched last month, Los Angeles officials hoped to reach a capacity of 12,000 photos a day.
In Oakland, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week that the first large-scale federal immunization site will be launched at the Athletics House, Oakland Coliseum.
The 49ers previously offered Levi’s Stadium for use by the county, but county officials, while receptive to the offer, said the biggest obstacle to gunfire is less a distribution issue, but a lack of supply. Although the site will open with a capacity of 5,000 photos per day, there are plans to increase the rate to 15,000 per day “as vaccine reserves increase,” according to the press release.
Now, the organization’s offer is being made, with the largest vaccination site in California to be launched at home early next week.