Disneyland opens mass Covid vaccination center
ANAHEIM, United States: California’s Disneyland opened a giant coronavirus vaccination center Wednesday, some 10 months after the pandemic’s appearance forced the closure of the world-famous theme park.
The first few hundred patients lucky enough to bag online appointments drove up to the Anaheim resort’s parking lot Wednesday morning, where those over 65 and health care workers are being inoculated in white tents.
“Today for many people getting vaccinated, it is truly the happiest place on Earth,” said Orange County supervisor Lisa Bartlett, referencing the famous Disney descriptor.
The county near Los Angeles announced Disneyland would host its first vaccination “super POD” (point-of-dispensing) site late Monday, and received 10,000 registrations within the first two hours on Tuesday.
“Easy – piece of cake, nothing to it. Didn’t even feel it go in,” Gary Dohman, an 81-year-old lung cancer patient, said after receiving his Moderna shot.
“I’ve been cooped up in a house for 10 months, can’t go anywhere. I want to get my second shot and do a little travelling.”
California’s sluggish roll-out of the vaccines has been widely criticized, with one of the lowest per capita inoculation rates in the United States.
State officials announced Wednesday that previous strict eligibility criteria would be immediately widened to include all over-65s – a move Orange County, where Disneyland is located, had already initiated. — AFP