Cal Poly Pomona will be home to the next mass vaccination center in the ongoing effort to control the spread of the coronavirus, health care providers and university officials announced Thursday, Feb. 4.
Starting Friday, the vaccination center will be open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, depending on vaccine availability, in Cal Poly’s parking structure No. 2. The site has the potential to inoculate up to 10,000 people per day, officials said.
The site will prioritize vaccinations for those 75 and older but will expand as additional vaccine supply becomes available, and as California adjusts its target population groups, according to a news release from Kaiser Permanente, one of the collaborators supporting the Cal Poly vaccination center.
Appointments are available on the California Department of Public Health’s My Turn website. “Stand-by” appointments will not be permitted.
The 145,000-square-foot site will have 16 check-in stations and four pods, and a combined total of 48 vaccination stations that can be expanded, according to Kaiser officials.
The site is served a public bus stop, so those without access to a vehicle also have access to the vaccination center. Those who drive to the site will be directed to specific parking areas and will be able walk into the vaccination area.
In a news release Thursday, Cal Poly Pomona President Soraya M. Coley said the university is proud to contribute to the acceleration of the state’s vaccination effort.
“Vaccines save lives, and we are committed, proud and prepared to be part of this effort,” Coley said.
The campus becomes the second major vaccination site in the city of Pomona, joining Fairplex, which opened its center in January along with four other mass-vaccine sites in Los Angeles County.
Pomona is among the L.A. County cities that have been hit hardest by the pandemic. As of Wednesday, Feb. 3, it is second only to the city of Los Angeles in COVID-19 cases, with 22,722 total infections reported, according to the county’s public health department.
