San Francisco opened the first of several coronavirus vaccination sites in the Mission district on Monday, moving forward with plans to reach the communities most affected by the pandemic, even though vaccine supply remains severely limited.
The new clinic was hailed as another sign of hope that the pandemic was approaching, especially welcome after the state and the Bay Area emerged from the deadliest month so far. More than a third of COVID-19 deaths in the Bay Area occurred in January, with 1,677 people dying last month.
The impressive number of victims reflects state and national figures: nearly 15,000 Californians and more than 95,000 people in the United States died of the virus in January. In total, more than 441,000 Americans lost their lives due to COVID-19.
The worst outbreak of the pandemic appears to be subsiding, however. COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations peaked in late December and early January. But public health experts say the need to vaccinate people quickly and dramatically slow the spread of the disease has never been more urgent. Several new variants that can partially prevent vaccines are already spreading in some parts of the world and have reached the United States.
“We just need more vaccines to get out the door and get into action as quickly as possible,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, director of health for San Francisco, at the Mission District vaccination clinic on Monday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Monday that 471 cases of three different variants were identified in at least 32 states. Scientists at the Stanford University Clinical Virology Laboratory have discovered variants first identified in the UK and Brazil in the bay area, and the UK variant in particular appears to be spreading in parts of southern California.
Colfax said the variants found in California appear to be largely covered by the already approved vaccines.
At the Mission District vaccination site, located in a parking lot on 24th and Capp Streets, city and state officials applauded Monday morning when the leaders of two Latin nonprofit organizations that had been serving the community during the pandemic received their first vaccines.
The mission site is the first of city officials’ plans for a network of neighborhood vaccine clinics. The Department of Public Health hopes to open similar locations in Bayview, Excelsior, Visitacion Valley and other neighborhoods with the highest rates of coronavirus infection. The city is also partnering with Safeway pharmacies to deliver vaccines to several neighborhoods.
“I’m very excited today,” said Mayor London Breed at the Mission’s vaccination site on Monday. “We know that this is the best chance we have to get back to the lives that we all know and miss.”
California has administered more than 3.5 million doses of vaccine so far, or about 60% of its total supply.
The state released letters of intent signed last week with Blue Shield of California and Kaiser Permanente on Monday to hand over the management of its vaccine distribution network in an effort to speed up dose delivery. Although the contracts were not finalized, the letters confirmed that the two Oakland-based healthcare providers would be working at or near cost and “will not profit from this agreement”.
Among other responsibilities, Blue Shield will help design an incentive payment system to encourage vaccine providers to use their doses more quickly, in a larger volume and with a focus on communities that have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, according to The letters. Kaiser will oversee at least two mass vaccination sites and other efforts to vaccinate hard-to-reach populations.
San Francisco built the infrastructure to administer 10,000 vaccine injections a day, but is receiving only about 11,000 a week, said Colfax. Breed said San Francisco has so far received 150,000 doses and distributed more than 90,000 of them. The rest is scheduled for second doses.
Although counties are allowed to offer vaccines to all residents age 65 and older, San Francisco is still prioritizing health professionals, in addition to the home support service team and long-term residents. So far, 104,000 of the 210,000 people in that first phase have received a dose, Colfax said.
“We saw what I call a relatively stable state compared to what it was a few weeks ago, but we still have a very low number of vaccines,” said Colfax.
Expanding the new location in the Mission District depends on the supply. During a smooth launch period, the health department said, the site will administer about 120 vaccines a day. The site may increase to 400 vaccinations a day as the supply increases.
The Mission’s website currently operates by invitation only, serving community health workers and local residents over 65 within the Unidos en Salud / United in Health network.
The new site targets a community that has been disproportionately affected by the virus. Latinos in San Francisco represent more than 42% of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the city, despite representing only 15% of the population, according to the latest public health data. They also account for more than 20% of deaths from the disease.
“It took the whole neighborhood to deal with this pandemic,” said Roberto Hernandez, co-founder of the Latin Task Force. “Many of the people we work with are the most vulnerable people, the people who work the hardest, the minimum wage workers who don’t have health insurance, they don’t have 401K. They have no retirement plans. This pandemic has affected them in more ways than you can imagine. “
The site opened at 9am for the first appointment on Monday. Around 10 am, José Ortiz, a specialist in family support for the non-profit organization Casa Corazon, received his first dose. The 43-year-old man was eligible to work in the community health field, as he works with affected families. Ortiz said that everyone in his community knows at least one person who fell ill or died of the virus.
“When you work with people all the time, you need to protect yourself and your family, and their family, too,” he said. Putting a clinic in the “heart of the mission is very important, so that everyone can see and leave”.
The new clinic will operate in conjunction with a coronavirus testing site at BART Square on 24th and Mission streets, which operates four days a week. The privately funded vaccine clinic emerged from Unidos en Salud, a collaboration between UCSF and the Latin Task Force that administered test sites at the Mission.
San Francisco opened its first mass vaccination site, administered by UCSF Health in partnership with the city’s Department of Public Health and private health providers, on January 22 on the main campus of the City College of San Francisco. The city is working on creating a centralized appointment scheduling system, Colfax said on Monday.
“This is a community that never stands still and allows no one to fall by the wayside,” said supervisor Hillary Ronen, who represents the Mission, at the opening of the vaccination site on Monday. “Hold on, you are Franciscans. We are almost out of it and we can come to an end together. “
Mallory Moench and Aidin Vaziri are editors of the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected], [email protected] Twitter: @mallorymoench, @MusicSF