Bay Area vaccine sites at stadiums? Teams are in talks
The A’s, Giants, 49ers and Sharks have offered or are in talks with officials about the possibility of using their stadiums in California’s coronavirus vaccination effort. The A’s and 49ers, in particular, have stadiums with large adjacent parking lots that could accommodate large turnout.
The A’s are in discussions with state and local officials and local health care providers about launching a drivethrough vaccination site at the Coliseum, a team spokesperson said Monday.
The Coliseum has served other purposes in recent months, as a voting center during the November election — which offered drivein “curbside” voting — and a flu vaccination site. The Coliseum Authority board plans to take up the COVID19 vaccine site idea when it meets
Friday, executive director Henry Gardner said.
“We need to be proactive in thinking ... let’s scale this so we make the facility available in a coordinated, wellplanned, orderly fashion that we can get as many people vaccinated as possible as soon as we can,” Gardner said.
The 49ers also offered Levi’s Stadium for use as a vaccination site Monday in a letter from team President Al Guido to Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors President Cindy Chavez.
“In collaboration with our partners, Levi’s Stadium offers a facility with the requisite technology to store vaccines, worldclass security, and the capability to partner with public health professionals to administer vaccines,” Guido wrote. “By serving as a vaccination center, we believe Levi’s Stadium can rapidly expand the number of Santa Clara County residents receiving the vaccine.”
A Giants spokesperson said via email that the team is in conversations with health care providers about Oracle Park and “our intent is to make the ballpark facilities available in whatever way is needed.”
A spokesperson for the Sharks said via email that the team is “having discussions” with health care providers about the potential use of SAP Center as a vaccine site while the Sharks are not playing in San Jose because of restrictions in the Santa Clara County health order. As with the other Bay Area stadiums, no plans have been formalized.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and San Diego’s Petco Park, home of the Padres, will host mass vaccination centers opening as soon as this week. Such sites are meant to help speed up California’s vaccination rate.
About 817,000 out of 2.5 million vaccine doses shipped to California counties and health care providers have been administered, according to the state’s department of public health. That puts California near the bottom among U. S. states in terms of rate of vaccine doses administered per 100,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.