Dodger Stadium To Halt Coronavirus Testing, Focus Entirely On Vaccine Distribution
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Dodger Stadium, which since May has served as the largest coronavirus testing site in the nation, will transition this week to focusing only on distributing vaccinations to Angelenos.
Mayor Eric Garcetti Sunday night announced that the Dodger Stadium testing supersite will end testing on Monday and "transition into a mass vaccination center" by week's end.
The site will be capable of vaccinating up to 12,000 people per day, the mayor's office said.
More than one million tests have been administered at Dodger Stadium since the drive-thru site opened in late May. Capable of testing up to 6,000 people per day, it is the largest testing site in the U.S.
"This shift in resources will temporarily reduce testing capacity in L.A. County, but it will more than triple the number of daily vaccines available to be dispersed to Angelenos," the mayor's office said in a news release.
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With the closure of the Dodger Stadium site, the city will work to ramp up testing at its 14 other city sites, eight of which are permanent and six of which are mobile. It will also be opening a new expanded testing site at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, Garcetti said.
"From early on in this pandemic, Dodger Stadium has been home base for our testing infrastructure, a vital part of our effort to track the spread of COVID-19, try to get ahead of outbreaks, and save lives," Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement. "Vaccines are the surest route to defeating this virus and charting a course to recovery, so the city, county, and our entire team are putting our best resources on the field to get Angelenos vaccinated as quickly, safely, and efficiently as possible."
COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in L.A. County have been steadily rising at an alarming rate since November. Through Sunday, there were 920,177 coronavirus cases in L.A. County and 12,250 deaths from the disease.
There were 7,910 coronavirus patients being treated in L.A. County hospitals, 21.6% of whom were in ICU beds, according to the latest state numbers Monday morning.
On Sunday, meanwhile, the Los Angeles County Public Health Department announced that it would discontinue the use of tests produced by San Dimas-based Curative Labs after the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning last week that those Curative tests can deliver false negatives.
The Curative tests, which were being used at pop-up testing sites, will be replaced by Fulgent Genetics tests.
