Petco Park vaccine site to reopen tomorrow

SAN DIEGO (CNS) - The Petco Park COVID-19 vaccine super station will reopen Tuesday following a five-day closure owing to delayed vaccine

shipments.

The Petco Park site - San Diego County's largest COVID-19 vaccination site - has been closed since Thursday as inclement weather has made

shipment from the Midwest and East Coast difficult. It only uses the Moderna vaccine, while other sites use Pfizer or both.

Appointments for second doses Friday through Monday were canceled and will be automatically rescheduled, UC San Diego Health officials said. People who had appointments should check the MyUCSDChart website for updates.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised that people can wait up to 42 days between doses and still achieve maximum immunity.

If a person received a first dose of Pfizer or Moderna, they cannot switch and get the second dose of the other company's vaccine and still achieve

effective immunity.

San Diego County public health officials reported 321 new infections Monday, increasing the county's total to 257,351 since the pandemic began. The

death toll decreased by one to 3,189 due to a reporting error.

It was the 11th consecutive day with fewer than 1,000 new cases. The 321 infections are the fewest reported since early November.

Of 9,806 tests reported Monday, 3% returned positive, decreasing the 14-day average positive percentage to 4.7% from Sunday's 4.9%.

Hospitalizations continue to decline, dropping to 639 patients - 205 of whom are in intensive care units. Hospitalizations have decreased by 59% in the past 30 days while ICU patients with COVID-19 have decreased by 53% in the same time period.

There are 55 staffed, available ICU beds in San Diego County.

One community outbreak was reported Monday, with 22 reported in the past week and 88 cases associated with those outbreaks.

As of Monday, of the 822,150 vaccine doses the county has received, 742,169 have been administered, more than 2,000 are awaiting processing and 77,500 have not been administered. A total of 18.9% of San Diego County's population over the age of 16 have received at least one dose and 6.7% are fully inoculated.

Appointments become available on Sunday for the county's sixth mega vaccination site, the North Central Vaccination Super Station at UC San Diego's RIMAC.

"Investments we are making in vaccination sites guarantee we have a robust network of easily accessible places for people to get vaccinated,'' San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Nathan Fletcher said.

"This sixth vaccination super station is another step in our ongoing commitment to have an equitable countywide vaccination strategy as more doses of the vaccine are made available for San Diegans.''

The no-cost walk-in clinic is located in the nearly 200,000 square foot Recreation, IntraMural and Athletic Complex at the university. The appointment-only site has the capacity to expand to up to 5,000 vaccinations a day.

The super station is open seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Parking is free.