When Orange County announced there'd be a pause in vaccinations at Disneyland, it marked another disruption in a growing list of them.
The rollout of locations known as "super points of dispensing," or super POD sites, has suffered from the stop and start pace of vaccine supply chain snags.
Within 24 hours of announcing the Anaheim Convention Center would be the next super POD, the county issued a second notice temporarily suspending inoculations at Disneyland.
Like many others, the county has struggled with supply issues, uncertain of how many doses it will receive this week or next. Orange County has received roughly 30,000 to nearly 40,000 vaccine doses a week, shuffled from county hands to city locations. The type varies. Some are the finicky hyper-freezer dependent Pfizer, but largely the more widely distributed Moderna.
The yo-yo in numbers has been an added variable in how the county inks new deals. For over a month now, Costa Mesa Mayor Katrina Foley has been anticipating the OC Fair and Event Center's opening as a mass vaccination location. She said the area needs its own super site to service people in south county.
"Our paramedics and firefighters know how to stand up these sites very well and quickly," she said. "As a city, we don't get vaccines, so we're reliant on the county and these private entities."
County spokesperson Molly Nichelson said there were no updates to report for the OC Fair and Event Center. She added the county is eyeing a total of five super sites.
The timetable for additional locations will partly depend on how much vaccination production gets ramped up.
The county hopes to have "The Happiest Place on Earth" back and running by Monday, but officials don't know when the scale will dramatically increase. Each Friday morning, the county CEO has a phone call with area mayors to discuss dose numbers.
"That's been the biggest challenge," said Lisa Bartlett, the Orange County 5th District Supervisor. "We aren't getting enough does from either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines."
While dose numbers are too low for officials, not every vaccine delivered to the county finds a patient. Some doses at Soka University went bad because of a refrigeration issue, highlighting how delicately they need to be attended to.
The Orange County Health Care Agency has been inking deals with large venues like Disneyland to vaccinate as many as 15,000 people a day. The Anaheim Convention Center represents not just an expansion of capacity but a shift in strategy.
People who received their first Moderna dose at Disneyland will be routed for the second to the Anaheim Convention Center. Appointments have been scheduled through the Othena smartphone app, a slickly designed software designed to record important patient information and supply users with reminders. It will automatically reroute patients to the location of their second dose.
After February 24, Disneyland will switch to only the Pfizer drug.
There are differences between the two current vaccines, and among others that may become available in the U.S. Pfizer has more logistical complications, and the second dose is required after three weeks. The Moderna drug is easier to store, content with a standard icebox, and requires a second dose after four weeks. A Moderna vial also offers 10 doses, twice the number of Pfizer. For now, it appears both are effective against many of the COVID-19 variants that have emerged.
The coronavirus drugs are also available at hospitals and pharmacies, but none can scale as big as large locations accustomed to handling thousands of people daily. Bartlett also said that some large local businesses have approached the county to offer themselves as inoculation sites.
"I really feel they provide the best opportunity for residents of Orange County to be vaccinated as soon as possible," she said.