With the National Football League’s announcement before Super Bowl LV that it has offered up all of its 30 venues as vaccination sites for the US government to administer Covid-19 vaccines, the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium has become the largest vaccination hub in the state of California.
The San Francisco 49ers and the County of Santa Clara announced the creation of California’s largest vaccination site at Levi’s Stadium to facilitate the rapid rollout of COVID-19 vaccines to the residents of Santa Clara County. The site will have the initial capacity to vaccinate 5,000 people per day, with plans to increase capacity up to 15,000 people per day as vaccine supplies increase.
“We recognize the urgent need for an effective and equitable vaccination effort for our community and are proud to partner with the County of Santa Clara to bring this vaccination site online as quickly and efficiently as possible,” said 49ers President Al Guido. “We have brought every resource at our disposal to bear on this challenge to ensure members of the community we live in each and every day can be vaccinated safely and quickly.”
The site will be staffed and operated by the County of Santa Clara Health System.
Meanwhile, the Arizona Cardinals haven’t played in State Farm Stadium since December, but the site remains active 24 hours a day thanks to its role as a Covid-19 vaccine destination — one of the first in the country to get up and running on such a scale.
The State Farm Stadium site runs around the clock, administering approximately 7,000 vaccinations every 24 hours, manned mostly by volunteers who make up the 500 workers.
“The success of State Farm Stadium as a Covid vaccination site is a source of great pride for all of us,” Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill said. “That success is not only reflected in the number of vaccines being administered on a daily basis but also by the fact that it’s viewed as a model for other venues to follow. We’re grateful to AZDHS, all the partners on this initiative and especially to the 500 volunteers on-site each day. It’s truly a team effort and our entire community benefits from it.”
State Farm Stadium was originally used a couple of times for large-scale blood drives at the outset of the pandemic. It was then used as a Covid testing site, before morphing into a vaccination destination.
