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WATCH: Dodger Stadium Mass COVID-19 Vaccination Officially Launches; Gov. Newsom, Mayor Garcetti Give Update
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, and other politicians gathered on Friday to launch the mass coronavirus vaccination site at Dodger Stadium. You can read highlights below or watch the full video above.
Garcetti said that the new vaccination center at Dodger Stadium will be the largest in the state. Once the center is at full capacity, the city will be able to vaccine 20,000 people per day, Garcetti said. It will be possible to vaccinate 12,000 people per day at Dodger Stadium.
So far, 1.8 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in California. Newsom said that the state is on track to meet its goal of vaccinating 1 million people in 10 days. L.A. County will have to be able to vaccinate that many people alone, with 100,000 vaccinations per day, in order to get everyone vaccinated on the timeline they're looking at, Rep. Jimmy Gomez said. The state has received just over 3 million doses to date, Newsom said.
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Garcetti said that he spoke with President-elect Joe Biden about the current lack of enough vaccine to speed up vaccinations in Los Angeles. Newsom responded to the news that a reported federal stockpile of 50 million doses doesn't exist. He said the state will be seeking clarity about the availability of vaccine does from the incoming Biden administration.
The state still expects to have enough shots for everyone who has been vaccinated to get a second dose despite the lack of a federal stockpile, but that it will be "really important" to verify people are actually eligible to get the vaccine. The state anticipates receiving hundreds of thousands more doses, but wants to be certain that they will arrive given today's news.
Newsom defended the announcement Thursday that vaccinations will be opened to Californians 65 and over, though some counties aren't yet ready to start vaccinating that age group, including L.A. County.
"I'll be damned if any of the vaccine goes to waste or gets thrown out simply because we don't know how to follow regulations, or the confusing guidelines, or simply because somebody refuses to take it," L.A. City Council President Nury Martinez said.
She called for the vaccine to be distributed safely, and justly, and for shots to be made available quickly to low-income and immigrant communities.
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