SAN DIEGO — Governor Newsom was in San Diego on Friday a day after he received his dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. He, along with Mayor Gloria and other state and local leaders, toured a vaccination pop-up site in City Heights.
Newsom has talked a lot about health equity when it comes to vaccines so he toured a vaccination site in one of the county’s hardest-hit areas. The governor had nothing but compliments for how San Diego has attempted to bridge the gap between the communities hit the hardest by COVID-19 and the vaccines.
“This county and this city is leading the way in the state of California in terms of doses administered, in terms of meeting not just the broad platitudes but rather the broad strokes on the issue of equity but actually manifesting them by getting into communities like this,” he said.
The City Heights zip code of 92105 in particular has been hit hard by COVID-19 and is historically underserved. Leaders for the City of San Diego say that by putting a mobile vaccination site directly in the neighborhood gives residents that live there a fair and fighting chance to receive the vaccine. Three hundred fifty doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine can be administered per day at the City Heights location. It is staffed by the city’s lifeguards and fire rescue personnel.
This mobile vaccination site is the third of its kind in the county. The two others were located in Valencia Park and another in Otay Mesa.
The governor also referenced the continuing statewide effort to deliver vaccines to the lowest-income communities hardest hit by the pandemic, saying nearly 3.7 million doses have been administered in such areas. He said the state will hit 4 million by next week, "which will allow cities and counties like San Diego to move more quickly through these tiers, ultimately getting to a green tier that we'll be talking a lot more about next week."
Watch: Governor Newsom talks about San Diego's tier status