One of the most visible mass vaccination sites in the Bay Area, the Oakland Coliseum site, is set to close next month, but Alameda County officials are making moves to try and keep it going.
The Coliseum site was only supposed to run for eight weeks.
Right now, it is run by the state with help from the federal government, and gets its supply from a special allocation to the feds. That’s why it can administer 6,000 shots a day, and has given out 200,000 doses in total, so far.
“Our numbers are higher in the evenings, that’s to be expected, but on the weekends we saw those really spread out throughout the day and we never had traffic issues or long lines getting to the Coliseum over the weekend," said Bryan May with California's Office of Emergency Services, which is operating the site.
But if the county takes over the site, it’s not clear whether it will be able to keep drawing from that federal pool of shots.
Experts said shifting gears is never a great idea when trying to build momentum towards herd immunity. Once the Coliseum is established as a main site, if there are changes, people get confused and stay away.
Currently, the site is focused on getting previous recipients their second Pfizer shot. Next week, it is switching to the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
Baseball starts at the Coliseum next week too, but officials have said vaccine distribution won't be affected.
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