A COVID-19 vaccination site set up on the University of Arizona Mall. January 2021.
Rising temperatures in Arizona are forcing health officials to plan for the relocation of outdoor COVID-19 mass vaccination sites.
Spring has arrived and with the new season comes the annual creeping of temperatures towards the 100-degree mark. As a result, state health officials are getting ready to move many of the outdoor vaccination sites to indoor locations to protect people and computer equipment.
One state-run site that will stay outdoors, at least for now, is the one at the University of Arizona.
“The really cool thing about the University of Arizona is not only do they have a drive-through site, which is on grass, it is in a relatively shaded area, they’ve got a lot of overhead structures to keep their people cooler, but they’ve also have a concurrently operating indoor site,” said Dr. Cara Christ, the director of the Arizona Department of Health Services.
The state vaccination pod at State Farm Stadium in Glendale will stop daytime operations in April. Instead, the site, which currently runs 24 hours a day, will only operate between 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m. until an indoor site is located.
Pima County officials said they too are looking to move many of the outdoor sites to indoor locations as the temperatures rise.
Both county and state officials would not say where the new sites will be but said announcements will be made when the moves are imminent so as to not cause any confusion.
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