ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. – Rain or shine, the Disneyland super POD site in Anaheim will be open, Orange County Health Care Agency officials said.
The mass coronavirus vaccination point-of-dispensing site at a Disneyland Resort parking lot, more commonly known as the Disneyland super POD, will be open this weekend and perhaps next week despite the forecasted rain on the horizon.
"No," Dr. Margaret Bredehoft, the deputy agency director of Public Health Services at the OCHCA said when asked by Spectrum News 1 about the possibility of closing the site again due to bad weather.
"I actually talked to our team that manages [the site], and they are making provisions tomorrow (Saturday), so there are no plans to close," Bredehoft said.
The county had to close the Disneyland super POD for two days this past week due to high winds. The closure was a blow to the county's efforts to vaccinate as many 65-year-old and older Orange County seniors as possible.
The Disneyland super POD can handle as many as 3,000 vaccinations a day due to current vaccine supplies, so the two-day closure resulted in 6,000 people not being vaccinated, officials said.
But the slight setback allowed the county to focus its efforts to work on opening a second POD site at Soka University in Aliso Viejo, begin rolling out a mobile POD initiative, and reassess the importance of opening other super PODs across the county, Bredehoft said.
"It is a plan that is in a process; that is why we want five super PODs," Bredehoft said, noting that the Soka University POD is indoors at a gymnasium. "So, we are exploring different operational models."
In a far-ranging interview with a pair of reporters on Friday about the county's vaccine rollout, Bredehoft preached patience and faith and wanted to assure the public that the county's health agency is doing everything it can to roll out the vaccines as quickly and safely as possible. They know they have issues to fix.
"We are in unprecedented times," Bredehoft said. "This is a new pandemic with new vaccines and new processes…If you think about it, I would rather fix something broken than sit there and do nothing. It's broken, but we're fixing it."
Bredehoft said in this short amount of time, the county has vaccinated more than 55,000 Orange County residents and workers. The county currently has 66,000 vaccine doses, and more are coming from the state.
One of the biggest complaints directed at the county is the difficulty of seniors signing up and registering for a COVID-19 vaccine appointment on the county's vaccine registration platform Othena.
Bredehoft said of the 410,000 people registered on Othena, 25% are 75 and older, and 65% are 65 and older.
She said the county is building a virtual digital waiting room, "where all you really need to do is just register, answer the questions, and wait until it's your turn. When we have more capacity, you'll receive an email or be notified through the app."
The county is working on a feature where registrants will receive a text message notifying them of their turn.
Bredehoft said the county is also looking into incorporating a drive-thru model at the Disney super POD site or somewhere else to expedite vaccinations.
Bredehoft said county health officials had visited drive-thru vaccination sites in Los Angeles and San Diego for lessons learned and best practices.
Additionally, the county has started going out to certain high-risk and high-impact communities with a mobile vaccination unit or mobile POD. The county is teaming up with the Orange County Office on Aging, the Council on Aging Southern California, local city officials, and groups to identify at-risk community groups and communities.
The county does not plan to publicize where their mobile pods will be due to safety concerns. The mobile pods can vaccinate as many as 300 to 500 people a day. Officials don't want to see the same issue when they opened their first vaccine site at a fire agency. Several people without an appointment came, and police had to come and restore order.
"There was mass hysteria," she said. "People came without an appointment. We had to have law enforcement, and it actually got dangerous where we had to shut down one day."
"Once we broadcast it and publicize it, people are going to come, and it's going to explode, and it's going to ruin the experience for those who took the time to register," she added.
The mobile POD is only by invitation, and for the most high-impacted and most vulnerable groups, OCHCA spokeswoman Molly Nichelson said.
Bredehoft said the county will take it slow with the mobile PODS, perhaps twice a week for now, and then ramp it up down the line.
She again preached patience with the whole process.
"Be patient with us and stick with us," she said. "With anything, it takes time. Be patient and have faith."