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The latest on COVID-19 in Arizona.

State Supported Mass Vaccination Site Coming To Yuma Civic Center

City of Yuma
Yuma Civic Center

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and the state health department announced a mass COVID-19 vaccination site at the Yuma Civic Center starting Monday, March 29. 

Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines has been a part of the negotiation process and said the vaccination site will augment vaccine availability in the county. 

"It's a federal health and human services program, and the vaccine comes from federal custody through the state directly to us, never actually take receipt on it," Lines said. We're actually depending upon the feds, not state, for our allocation." 

Appointments for the week of March 29 will be available at 11:00 a.m. Friday, March 26 here and by phone at 1-844-542-8201.

 

The site,  previously used for testing and county vaccination's, will offer nearly 8,000 COVID vaccination appointments a week with hopes of increasing it to 4,000 a day as it progresses, according to the state health department. 
 
The site will operate seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. 
 
Two weeks ago the Yuma County Emergency Management Director Tony Badilla told the Yuma County Board of Supervisors that the Arizona Department of Emergency Military Affairs (DEMA) was looking for another state-run vaccination site. 

 

The negotiations were between DEMA, the City of Yuma, and Yuma Regional Medical Center (YMRC). 

DEMA plans to operate the site seven days a week.

Board member Jonathan Lines with the county said it's something Yuma County deserves because of the short supply of the vaccine the community has received so far. 

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"The census numbers and the amount of vaccines that we were receiving didn’t necessarily match up," Lines said. "Everything was census-based. But we have a large amount of winter visitors and we have a large amount of agricultural workers during the wintertime." 

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