Gov. Gavin Newsom set a goal for the state to vaccinate another one million Californians this week.
But by Thursday, the state had only vaccinated some 200,000 more people.
While the true number may be somewhat higher because of lags in reporting data, it appears the state will still fall far short of its goal.
Part of the state’s plan to ramp up vaccinations is by opening mass vaccination sites. Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles spent the week converting from the country’s largest testing site into a vaccination site and will reopen Friday, ready to vaccinate up to 12,000 people a day.
Oakland Coliseum officials are meeting this morning to formalize a plan to use the site’s 140-acre parking lot for vaccinations.
"We don’t have an exact number, but I think if you look at similar locations like Dodger Stadium where they’re doing 10-12,000 or Coors Field where I think they’re doing 13,000, you know, it has the capacity to do that many," said Oakland A’s President Dave Kaval. "Obviously it’s 140 acres, there’s tons of parking, space that can be used to stage people, there’s lots of facilities indoor and outdoor."
Kaval said the Coliseum Board is working with several big healthcare providers as well as the county to supply the site, but says no one has enough doses right now to serve a high volume of people.
Santa Clara County officials are facing the same problem at Levi’s Stadium and San Francisco at Oracle Park.
Oakland City Council member Rebecca Kaplan also sits on the Coliseum Board.
"(We want to) make sure that we’re using this large and valuable place in ways that benefit the community. And there’s hardly anything you could imagine that our community needs more right now than to ramp up vaccinations…in Oakland we have a very hard hit community, a very disproportionately hit community and we need to be vaccinating people much more rapidly than what's been happening."
California public health officials said nearly two million doses shipped to local health departments and health care facilities have not yet been used.
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