Arizona opens up 21,000 more vaccine appointments at Phoenix Muni
Feb 2, 2021, 3:14 PM
Phoenix Municipal Stadium opened as a state-run COVID-19 mass-vaccination site opened Feb. 1, 2021.(Twitter Photo/Arizona Department of Health Services)
(Twitter Photo/Arizona Department of Health Services)
PHOENIX — Arizona officials announced Tuesday the state is opening up 21,000 more vaccine appointments at Phoenix Municipal Stadium across a two-week period in February.
The extra appointments at the state-run site, which opened Monday, will be available on the Arizona Department of Health Services website beginning at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
The appointments will serve residents starting Friday through Feb. 18 and will be available from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.
Only people in phase 1A (front-line health care workers, emergency medical services workers and staff and residents at long-term care facilities) or the priority segment of phase 1B (educators, child care providers, law enforcement and adults 65 and older) are eligible to register at state-run sites.
“We know the vaccine is in high demand and we expect the appointments to fill quickly,” ADHS Director Dr. Cara Christ said in a press release. “Building off of the success of the State Farm Stadium site, we are able to replicate these sites quickly to add capacity when we get vaccine.”
Appointments at both state-run sites — State Farm Stadium in Glendale being the other — were fully booked through February prior to Tuesday’s announcement.
The Phoenix location was initially capped at around 500 doses daily.
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State Farm Stadium started 24-hour operations on Jan. 11 and has administered more than 100,000 shots.
The state’s two stadium parking lot sites each have the capacity to give about 12,000 shots a day.
An executive order issued last week by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey required vaccine providers that have received more than 1,000 doses with more than 40% of those doses remaining to submit a plan to ADHS in order to identify available doses of the Pfizer vaccine and allow additional appointments.
More than 702,000 shots, 59% of the allotment so far in Arizona, have been given statewide as of Tuesday afternoon.
“Arizona acted quickly to ensure these vaccine doses will go to Arizonans with urgency, rather than sitting in a freezer,” Ducey said in the release. “With State Farm Stadium and our new Phoenix Municipal Stadium, Arizona has dramatically increased the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered each day.
“These vaccination sites have become a national model for other states and we will continue to look for ways to ensure Arizona’s vaccine doses are being used.”
