Disneyland is rebranding as a mass COVID vaccination site

[This article originally conflated the July 2020 re-opening of Walt Disney World Resort with the continued operation of Disneyland during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the exception of its operation as a vaccination distribution site, Disneyland remains closed. We regret the error.—Ed.]

Just one day after the City of Los Angeles announced its plan to transition Dodger Stadium into a mass COVID-19 vaccination site, officials in Orange County have revealed similar plans for Disneyland. The happiest place on Earth will soon become the most vaccinated-est place on Earth (sorry, these things are unavoidable), as Entertainment Weekly reports that Disneyland Resort has generously offered itself up as as a Super POD (place-of-distribution) site—probably the least it can do, considering that Disney chose to re-open its Florida parks during a pandemic which has led to Los Angeles County recently surpassing 12,000 deaths in a post-holiday surge.

According to the county, the Disneyland Resort Super POD will be operational sometime this week and will have the ability to vaccinate thousands of Anaheim residents daily. The COVID-19 vaccine has been rolling out in phases nationwide, with the elderly, healthcare and frontline workers receiving it first. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 9 million people have received the first of the two vaccines as of January 11, while only 151,000 people in the U.S. have been fully vaccinated (received both doses) as of January 8, according to a New York Times report. The Department of Health and Human Services is moving to implement new vaccine guidelines in an effort to speed up the distribution process; those guidelines, which would make people over the age of 65 eligible to begin receiving the vaccine, will be announced today.