California officials are scrambling to open coronavirus vaccine “super sites” at places like Disneyland and the Moscone Center in San Francisco in an effort to speed up the distribution of shots in a state with one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.
Speaking to reporters at one of the sites, Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the federal government further complicated the effort to accelerate distribution this week by promising the state hundreds of thousands of doses from a stockpile held in reserve for second shots that The Washington Post reported is actually empty.
Newsom said he participated in an “all-governors” call with Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar this week in which federal officials said they would be releasing more than 50 million additional doses to the states.
“Then we read as everybody else that they have reneged on that or for whatever reason, are unable to deliver on that,” Newsom said, adding that he’s asked for clarification from the Trump administration and the incoming Biden administration.
For now, Newsom said he is now unsure when the doses will arrive in California.
“Our resolve is to get all of the existing doses that are in this state administered as quickly and efficiently as possible and we still have a lot of work to do in that space,” he said.
The state has received just over 3 million doses so far.
Californians are growing increasingly frustrated with the sluggish vaccine rollout as the state averages more than 40,000 new cases of COVID-19 each day.
Newsom also pushed back on criticism that the state created confusion this week when it prematurely offered vaccines to people who are 65 or older.
“The purpose was crystal clear, and that is to make sure the guidelines were not barriers and to provide the flexibility with a sense of urgency that's needed in this moment,” he said.