(Reuters) – The federal government is partnering with the state of Texas to build three mass vaccination sites, following last week’s announcement that it would build these sites in California, federal health officials said at a meeting press release Wednesday.
Each site will be able to administer 10,000 shots a day, according to Jeffrey Zients, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator, and should begin making them by Feb. 22.
The sites will be in the Dallas and Houston areas and will be operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), according to a state statement. One venue will be the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, where the Dallas Cowboys are located.
The federal government also plans to open vaccination centers in the New York districts of Brooklyn and Queens on Feb. 24, each of which will be able to administer about 3,000 shots a day, Zients said in an announcement with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo .
Both New York sites will receive special vaccine allocations from the federal government and are intended to benefit black and Latino New Yorkers who have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, Cuomo said.
Last week, the state of California said it partnered with FEMA to open mass vaccination sites in Los Angeles and Oakland as part of a pilot program initiated by President Joe Biden’s administration.
Both states said the goal of the program was to make sure people in underserved communities had access to vaccines.
Rebecca Spalding Reports; Edited by Franklin Paul, Jonathan Oatis and Bernadette Baum