Orange County plans to launch its third mass vaccination Super POD (point of dispensing) at the Anaheim Convention Center next week, opening a new front in the county’s campaign to protect millions of residents from the coronavirus.
Starting Wednesday, Feb. 24, the convention center will serve as both a COVID-19 testing and immunization site.
The convention center will join other nodes in a growing regional web of large, small, public and private vaccination centers on the frontlines of a vast public health campaign to immunize as many people as possible from COVID-19, starting with the most vulnerable.
It also will be the second public mass vaccination center in Anaheim, Orange County’s most populous city. The outdoor Disneyland Super POD opened Jan. 13 in one of the theme park’s parking lots, a half mile from the convention center on Katella Avenue.
Once up and running, the convention center site is expected to vaccinate as many people per day as the Disneyland site – about 5,000 – and because it’s indoors, it will be sheltered from the kind of inclement weather that forced the tented Disneyland site to close three times in the month since it launched.
Another large-scale, indoor site opened Jan. 23 at Soka University in Aliso Viejo, a closer option for south county residents, and several smaller day-long clinics have popped up, inviting certain vulnerable groups of senior residents.
Orange County supervisors and OC Health Care Agency officials have said they ultimately envision five county-run mass vaccination sites around the county, but they are only bringing them online as supplies of doses from the state grow. Other health care entities, such as traditional providers and pharmacy chains, have launched their own programs.
Appointments for the convention center site also will be made via the county’s Othena appointment system. None of the county’s vaccination centers are open to walk-ups. Qualified patients who are having trouble with Othena are asked to call a county hotline at 714-834-2000.
After first opening up vaccinations to health care workers and some law enforcement, the county expanded eligibility to those 65 and older – the primary focus now of most efforts.
Of 656,000 people registered since Othena’s launch in January (people who aren’t yet eligible can register for notification when they are), 198,000 doses have been administered, Othena’s website showed Wednesday, Feb. 17.
Starting Feb. 24, “everyone who received the first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at the Disneyland Super POD site will receive the second dose at the Anaheim Convention Center Super POD site,” county officials said in a press release Wednesday evening.
After that date, Disneyland will only dispense Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, which require a three-week gap between first and second doses, and the convention center will only dispense Moderna vaccines, which require a four-week gap.
“The second dose appointment will remain at the same date and time; only the location will change. Othena will send a notification to everyone whose appointment location is affected by this change,” the press release said.
Being home to two super-sites will make Anaheim a pandemic-fighting hub, said Mayor Harry Sidhu.
“These two sites will provide more options for Anaheim residents to get vaccinated where they live, while also serving people from across Orange County,” he said.
The city is home to many who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic – people with lower incomes and less access to health care who can’t isolate from others if they’re exposed to COVID-19 and don’t have jobs that allow them to work from home.
On Wednesday, county officials launched a smaller-scale vaccination site at Santa Ana College to target eligible people who live in hard-hit communities in Santa Ana, Anaheim and Garden Grove. The center will be open to only those in targeted ZIP codes and is expected to inoculate about 1,000 people each day and will be closed Sundays and Mondays.
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February 18, 2021 at 10:07AM
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Orange County to launch third mass vaccination site at Anaheim Convention Center - OCRegister
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