COVID vaccination and testing sites that served millions of Bay Area residents are set to wind down their operations in the coming months, signifying an end to a key part of the region’s massive mobilization of public health resources that ramped up three years ago in the first days of a once-in-a-century pandemic.
The impending closures come as COVID cases across the region trend downwards — and an announcement from the White House that the pandemic’s national emergency and public health emergency will end in May.
Overall, the changes from the local to the federal level generally mean that costs for COVID-related healthcare will shift over to consumers. Vaccines and testing will still be largely available through private healthcare providers and pharmacies.
On Wednesday, Santa Clara County announced it would dismantle its three remaining vaccination and testing sites by the end of the month.
“We are transitioning from a full-blown response to one where we’re adapting to live with Covid,” said Santa Clara County’s Public Health Office Dr. Sara Cody at a press conference on Wednesday. “We’re in a better and safer place.”
The vaccine and testing closures will occur between Feb. 24 and 28 and impact San Jose’s county fairgrounds site, as well as locations in San Martin and Mountain View. County officials said that it will still be providing vaccines on a smaller scale at its clinics and hospitals for mostly low-income residents.
In total, the county doled out 1.9 million shots since the first vaccines were available in winter 2020, according to Cody, who was generally considered the driving force behind the country’s first lockdowns in March 2020 imposed on six million Bay Area residents in six neighboring counties. The Bay Area’s first case was discovered in Santa Clara on Jan. 31, 2020.
All told, the pandemic response is estimated to have cost Santa Clara roughly $1.3 billion, county data shows.
“It was a monumental effort,” said Cody about the last three years. At the height of the pandemic, the county was administering 30,000 shots a day at 10 different locations — even utilizing the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium as a mass vaccination site at one point.
Other Bay Area counties are also beginning to phase out mass vaccination and testing efforts.
San Mateo County said it will be shutting down most of its testing sites on Sunday, though two locations will remain open in San Bruno and at the College of San Mateo. It shut down its mass vaccinations sites around a year ago — and is currently providing pop-up locations once-a-week at schools and churches in the coastal part of the county and East Palo Alto, according to the public health department.
Contra Costa County said Wednesday it will keep its vaccination sites in Richmond, Concord and Antioch operating until an undetermined date in the spring. The county closed its two mass testing sites in October.
Alameda County will continue to offer vaccination services at Weekes Community Center in Hayward indefinitely. Pop-up clinics will continue at least through the end of June 2023 — and could be extended through June 2024.
Many state-run testing and vaccination operations will also shutter in the coming weeks in response to the end of the California state of emergency on Feb. 28.
Staff writers Aldo Toledo and Judy Prieve contributed reporting to this article.
