Los Angeles officials will be temporarily shut several vaccination sites around the city, curbing what had become an impressive daily rate on innoculations, due to a lack of COVID-19 vaccine supply.
Officials said that five sites are affected, including the country's largest site for mass vaccination at Dodger Stadium.
Mayor Eric Garcetti said during a news conference that the city will run out of its supply of vaccines from Moderna by this week. Garcetti said that the city plans to close down the vaccination sites on Friday and Saturday.
He said that the facilities should be reopened by Tuesday or Wednesday next week depending on when the new supply will arrive. According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 10% of Californians have already received their first dose of the vaccine.
"We're vaccinating people faster than new vials are arriving here in Los Angeles. I'm concerned as your mayor that our vaccine supply is uneven, it's unpredictable and too often inequitable," Garcetti said.
The city's Dodger Stadium began inoculating citizens in mid-January. During the first two weeks of its operation, the site had vaccinated more than 85,000 people.
Through various improvements in its processing methods, the site had drastically reduced wait times. Last week, the site's administrators said that they were averaging more than 6,000 vaccinations per day. The city hit a new daily record on Wednesday, vaccinating around 19,000 people across its five major vaccination sites.
Garcetti said that the rate of vaccinations has far surpassed the rate of vaccine deliveries. He said that the city had only received 16,000 new doses this week and their saved up supply is quickly running out.
Like Los Angeles, other cities across the nation are also struggling to keep up with the inoculations due to supply and logistical constraints. U.S. President Joe Biden had promised to vaccinate at least 100 million Americans by the 100th day of his administration on April 30.
According to federal officials, the government has so far delivered about 68.3 million doses to various states, territories, and federal agencies. Officials had said that there are still millions of doses in reserve for second doses.
