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CA Partners With FEMA To Open New Vaccination Site At Cal State LA

By LAist Staff
Published Feb 3, 2021 12:32 PM
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom delivering an update on COVID-19 this morning. Watch the full press conference above or check out the main points below.

THE TAKEAWAY

Newsom is announcing two pilot vaccination sites in California:

  • California State University, Los Angeles
  • Oakland-Alameda Coliseum
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According to a news release, those sites are among the Biden administration's efforts to "establish 100 vaccination sites nationwide in the federal administration’s first 100 days. The sites will be co-run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the State of California through the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES)."
Newsom said in the release:

“In the fight against COVID-19, partnership is key, especially when it comes to reaching Californians in underserved areas. These new sites will help us get available supply to some of the California communities most in need.”

State officials said new sites "will be paired with two mobile vaccination clinics which can be deployed to multiple locations to amplify and provide distribution to areas that otherwise lack sufficient support."

L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis said Cal State L.A's mobile units "will allow us to go into communities that are hard pressed, that may have mobility issues, either lack of transportation or what have you, where we can go out to congregate settings, or even government project housing like Centro Maravilla, Ramona Gardens, some of these projects that have thousands of people that may not have access to Cal State L.A."

Newsom said the goal is distribute a minimum of 6,000 doses a day and scale up from there.

He explained why these locations were chosen first for California:

"Equity is the call of this moment. The reason this site was chosen was the framework of making sure that communities that are often left behind, are not left behind. They're prioritized."

Yesterday California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said the state is working with local partners to collect data on how many people have been vaccinated so far in communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. He said the state would release that data, but didn't specify when.

The plan is to have the sites up and running by Feb. 16. To register for vaccine appointments (the release notes: "in the coming days") visit the state’s MyTurn scheduling system.

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