In anticipation of Arizona’s triple digit heat, the state health department plans on scaling back its outdoor vaccine sites and cutting daytime hours.

State health officials said this week that Arizona’s first 24/7 large-scale COVID-19 vaccine site at State Farm Stadium in Glendale will convert to an overnight operation in early April “to protect staff, volunteers and patients from extreme heat.”

To replace that capacity, the state is identifying indoor venues to use, the Arizona Department of Health Services said in a news release this week.

The release does not give specific plans, including how indoor venues will handle vehicles. The sites are predominantly for drive-up appointments.

The state also has not said what will happen at another 24/7 site at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, nor at its vaccine sites in Chandler and Tucson. More details are expected later this week, when state health director Dr. Cara Christ gives her regular Friday vaccine news briefing.

“A lot involving weather and the PODs (point of dispensing sites) remains in flux as of today, including the exact hours for State Farm Stadium … the director plans to make all of this the main topic of her Friday briefing,” department spokesman Steve Elliott wrote Wednesday in an email.

The state opened its State Farm Stadium vaccination site Jan. 11, opened at Phoenix Municipal Stadium Feb. 1, and transitioned a POD at the University of Arizona to be a state-run site on Feb. 18. On March 3, the state took over operations of a vaccine site at Chandler-Gilbert Community College that previously has been operated by Dignity Health.

“The state has been able to establish mass-vaccination sites quickly at outdoor venues. Now we will replicate that in places allowing us to continue this momentum as temperatures climb,” Christ said in a written statement.

“We expect considerably more vaccine from the federal government in the coming weeks, and state sites will be part of a response that includes community-level efforts by counties, vaccine available at pharmacies and similar settings, and more.”

State health officials have said there are plans to stand up state-run PODs in Yuma and Coconino counties, although neither have taken shape yet. 

The three state PODs in Maricopa County and one in Pima County have administered a combined nearly 685,000 vaccine doses as of Wednesday, making up about 446,000 people with at least one dose and about 269,000 people fully vaccinated at state PODs.

State Farm Stadium crossed the 500,000 dose administered mark Monday.

More than 2.6 million doses have been administered at all sites statewide, with more than 1.6 million people who have received at least one dose and more than one million people fully vaccinated, per state data as of Wednesday. 

Information about vaccine sites across Arizona is available at azhealth.gov/findvaccine, and registration is open for state sites and many others at podvaccine.azdhs.gov.

Those without computers or those who need extra help registering can call the state’s help line at 844-542-8201. Pima County in southern Arizona has set up its own help line for vaccine scheduling and registration at 520-222-0119.

To learn more about COVID-19 vaccines, visit azdhs.gov/COVID19Vaccines.

Reach health care reporter Stephanie Innes at [email protected] or at 602-444-8369. Follow her on Twitter @stephanieinnes

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or at 602-444-4282. Follow her on Twitter @alisteinbach. 

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