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San Francisco will soon open three large vaccination sites in the city and officials eventually hope to administer at least 10,000 doses per day, the mayor of London Breed said on Friday.
A site will likely open by the end of next week on City College’s main campus. But there’s one major hurdle preventing the city from opening up the others: California’s limited stock of vaccine, which has been distributed unpredictably across the state.
“We are ready for more doses, we need more doses and we are asking for more doses,” one visibly frustrated breed said at a press conference on Friday. “We can speed up and open these sites as soon as we have the vaccines. We mobilize the whole city. “
Friday’s announcement comes after a week of finger-pointing and grievances over responsibility for the slow deployment of the vaccine in California, which is among the slowest in the country. Not only is distribution a colossal logistical challenge, but it has also fueled political tensions among elected officials who are all mad about the same issues: a shortage of vaccines and a lack of certainty about when their constituents will get them.
Meanwhile, hospitals are grappling with a deadly spike in cases and highly contagious new strains of the virus that could potentially wreak more havoc on the healthcare system. The stakes could not be higher for cities, counties and the state to get more shots in the arms of the people.
“Our case rate is higher than ever before, but vaccines are our solution,” San Francisco Director of Public Health Dr. Grant Colfax said at Friday’s event. . “And we need more as soon as possible.”
San Francisco hopes to increase its distribution by partnering with private health care providers – who receive the majority of the state’s supply – to manage large vaccination sites. These providers include Kaiser, Sutter, Dignity Health, and UCSF. This means that anyone in the city, with or without insurance, can visit the sites when it is their turn.
The sites will be located on City College’s main campus on Ocean Avenue near Interstate 280, the Moscone Center in SoMa and SF Market, a wholesale product site in the Bayview. Officials chose these sites because they are in or near neighborhoods hardest hit by the virus.
The public health department also plans to administer vaccines in more than a dozen community clinics and several pop-ups in the city.
On Tuesday, residents of San Francisco will be able to access a website, www.sf.gov/vaccinenotify, where they can submit their contact and eligibility information, then be notified by email when it’s their turn to. to get vaccinated.
But given the slow rollout of the vaccine so far, townspeople could wait a while for this email.
California has only administered
San Francisco County has received 33,975 doses so far. As of Friday, only 13,566 vaccines had been administered, about 1,200 more than the day before. These doses do not include vaccines sent directly to major healthcare providers.
Breed said all available doses have been assigned to someone and the city plans to use up all of their available doses next week. Officials are asking the state for another “large volume order”.
Yet logistical challenges persist: some vaccines have been allocated to facilities that are still ramping up operations, while others need to be put aside so people can get the required second dose.
“We’re not sitting on any vaccines,” Breed said. “They’re all moving out the door.”
Officials in San Francisco – and the Bay Area – have also complained that they are receiving an inconsistent and unpredictable supply from the state, making it difficult for them to schedule the number of dates they can. take or the staff they will need for a day off.
San Francisco, for example, received 3,900 doses the first week of January, then 11,825 the following week. Next week, the county was told it would receive 4,275 doses. It’s a big drop, for no big reason.
Meanwhile, vaccine-eligible residents have reported massive confusion over how, when and where to get vaccinated. Some who called their suppliers for answers had to wait several hours on hold.
And these restless residents have inundated their elected officials with questions, wondering why the process seems confusing with little information, even though officials apparently have had plenty of time to prepare.
Supervisor Matt Haney channeled this frustration via Twitter this week, and sharply criticized the public health department for what it believed to be a nonchalant approach to vaccinating residents.
He said it was “incredibly inappropriate and downright wrong” for private providers to be largely responsible for distribution, even if it is up to the state to decide who gets which doses.
Still, he called for a more aggressive deployment of the city and the establishment of a mass vaccination site, such as at Petco Park in San Diego and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, which opened on Friday. He will hold a hearing on the city’s distribution plan on Wednesday.
Haney’s comments infuriated many in the public health department and the mayor’s office, who said they were working on a larger distribution plan – but their hands were tied by the shortage of state supply.
Mayor Breed & DPH announce 3 mass vaccination sites, as well as community sites across town.
This is a massive and welcome change from a week ago, when their position was “not a widespread county cast.”
– Matt Haney (@MattHaneySF) January 15, 2021
“I know people are asking us to set up all of these sites everywhere,” Breed said Friday. “Well, we are setting up the sites. We just don’t have full control over vaccines.
The state blamed its inconsistent supply on the national vaccine shortage and also a lack of leadership from the federal government. As manufacturing ramps up, Darrel Ng, a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health, said on Thursday that counties will begin to see larger amounts of vaccine and greater predictability of supply.
During the press conference, Breed said she understood why people were angry and confused about the vaccine rollout.
But, just as she has been doing since March, the mayor urged her city to be more patient.
“We’ve come too far to start falling apart now,” she said. “I know more than anyone, with everyone’s life on my shoulders, the importance of opening up the city as quickly as possible.
Trisha Thadani is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @TrishaThadani
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