Written by Elina Linner
Petco Parks’s vaccination superstation struggled with a shortage of doses this week and had to close as of Sunday, February 14th, 2021. Last Friday, San Diego County announced a shipment of the Moderna vaccine had been delayed and will arrive on Tuesday.
This just shines a light on the lack of planning by Governor Gavin Newsom. The vaccine rollout has been botched, especially in light of the fact that the state has known for months that the vaccines were on their way. The planning for an efficient rollout should have taken place when it was first announced that a successful vaccine had requested emergency approval. This coupled with the Chair of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors Nathan Fletcher’s heavy-handed and slow deployment has made it difficult to schedule appointments.
According to Dr. Marlene Millen (UC San Diego Health), all Sunday (2/14/21) appointments will be shifted to February 22, 2021, Monday (2/15/21) appointments to February 23, and Tuesday (2/16/21) will be split between February 24, 2021, and the 25th.
Petco Park is the only superstation that is currently pausing appointments completely. All Petco Park appointments are postponed until additional doses arrive. David Powers experienced the frustration of going to Petco Park only to be informed that there were not enough doses available and he had to reschedule his appointment.
The County of San Diego has informed the public that the vaccination site’s top priority is scheduling second dose appointments. Maximum immunity can still be achieved up to 42 days in between the doses.
Officials say that the good news is that the East County and South Bay superstations have enough vaccine doses to get through Monday when, hopefully, the shipment of the Moderna vaccines arrive. County-run POD sites appear to have enough supply of the COVID-19 doses to meet both second dose appointments and some of the first dose appointments.
The new superstation in Del Mar will have the capability of vaccinating 10,000 people per day once the supply becomes available which has been uneven and erratic due to poor planning on behalf of the state.
