California's two U.S. senators said Wednesday they have requested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency work with local and state governments to keep mass COVID-19 vaccination sites open in Oakland and Los Angeles past their planned April 11 end date.
In a letter to acting FEMA Administrator Bob Fenton, Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla asked for the sites at the Oakland Coliseum and California State University, Los Angeles to stay open, saying they have both have been administering more than 7,500 doses per day, bolstering regional capacity.
Feinstein and Padilla called for FEMA "to provide the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services and the counties of Alameda and Los Angeles with financial and logistical support so they can take over operations, and that the federal government continues to send the sites direct shipments of vaccine doses."
The two sites in Oakland and Los Angeles opened in February for an eight-week pilot program. During their last two weeks, the sites are slated to switch from providing the two-shot Pfizer vaccine to the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
With California planning to make all residents 16 and older eligible for the vaccine next month, "we believe this is precisely the time when mass vaccination sites, like the ones in Oakland and Los Angeles, are needed. It would be counterproductive to close them before the vast majority of the population is vaccinated," the senators wrote.