Baseball Stadiums, Theme Parks, Cathedrals: See the World’s Makeshift COVID-19 Vaccination Hubs

Earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, as arriving patients quickly overwhelmed hospitals from China to Italy to New York, officials converted all manner of public spaces into makeshift treatment hubs in a wartime-like effort to save as many people as possible. Now, as cases fall in many countries, public spaces are being changed once again—this time into mass vaccination hubs, where hundreds or even thousands of people can be inoculated against COVID-19 in a given day.

Below, see some of the world’s most impressive makeshift COVID-19 vaccination hubs, from New York’s Citi Field to Moscow’s Krylatskoye Ice Palace to the United Kingdom’s Salisbury Cathedral. We’ve also included images from smaller, perhaps less remarkable venues, like high school gyms and a bus-turned-mobile vaccination unit. Combined, these facilities will play a critical role in ensuring the worst of the pandemic is behind us.

 

Temporary COVID-19 hospital in western Moscow
Valery Sharifulin—TASS/ReutersA temporary COVID-19 vaccination site at Krylatskoye Ice Palace in Moscow on Feb. 1, 2021.
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Boris Roessler—Pool/AFP/Getty ImagesA view of the cabins before the first COVID-19 vaccinations in the Festhalle hall in Frankfurt on Jan. 19, 2021.
Terezinha da Conceicao,Dulcinea da Silva Lopes
Bruna Prado—APTerezinha da Conceicao, 80, left, and Dulcinea da Silva Lopes, 59, become the first women to receive the COVID-19 vaccine produced by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd in front of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro on Jan. 18, 2021.
Salisbury Cathedral functions as a COVID-19 vaccination site in Salisbury, England on Jan. 23 2021. (Tom Jamieson/The New York Times)
Tom Jamieson—The New York Times/ReduxSalisbury Cathedral functions as a COVID-19 vaccination site in Salisbury, England, on Jan. 23, 2021.
COVID-19 vaccination centre at a former ice stadium in Berlin
Kay Nietfeld—Pool/ReutersA view of a temporary COVID-19 vaccination center in the Erika-Hess ice stadium in Berlin on Jan. 14, 2021.
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Juan Mabromate—AFP/Getty ImagesHealth workers are vaccinated with the Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 at Argentine club River Plate’s basketball court in Buenos Aires on Feb. 2, 2021.
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Gil Cohen-Magen—AFP/Getty ImagesA health worker administers a COVID-19 vaccine at a bar in Tel Aviv on Feb.18, 2021.
Cars lined up for a vaccination site at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Jan. 29, 2021. (Philip Cheung/The New York Times)
Philip Cheung—The New York Times/ReduxCars lined up ata vaccination site at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Jan. 29, 2021.
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Michael Dantas—AFP/Getty ImagesOlga D’arc Pimentel, 72, is vaccinated by a health worker with a dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on the banks of the Rio Negro near Manaus, Brazil, on Feb. 9, 2021.
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François Nascimbeni—AFP/Getty ImagesA woman gets in the VACCI’BUS, which goes village to village to enable people with reduced mobility to be easily vaccinated, in Bouleuse, France, on Jan. 20, 2021.
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Joseph Prezioso—AFP/Getty ImagesHundreds of people move through Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., as they receive their COVID-19 vaccine on Feb. 1, 2021.
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Andrej Isakovic—AFP/Getty ImagesA health worker directs people arriving to get their COVID-19 vaccine at the Belgrade Fair in Belgrade, Serbia, on Jan. 25, 2021.
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Adrian Dennis—AFP/Getty ImagesPeople arrive at Epsom Downs Racecourse as it opens as a COVID-19 vaccination center in Epsom, England, on Jan. 11, 2021.
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Jonathan Nackstrand—AFP/Getty ImagesPreparations take place at Stockholm’s City Hall to convert the Nobel Prize venue into a COVID-19 vaccination site on Feb. 21, 2021.
NY: Mets Citi Field Opens As COVID-19 Vaccine Mega Hub
Anthony Behar—Sipa/APNew York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, left, and New York Mets baseball team owner Steve Cohen speak after a press conference to announce the opening of Mets Citi Field stadium as a COVID-19 Vaccine Mega Hub in Queens, N.Y., on Feb. 10, 2021.

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Contributor: Maïa Booker and Alex Fitzpatrick