San Francisco Mayor London Breed said at a news conference on Tuesday that the city’s health department will run out of vaccines this week and that there is a desperate need for more doses. Breed shared this news on the same day that the city launched a new notification system allowing you to sign up to receive a text or email when you are eligible for the vaccine.
The SF Department of Public Health received 31,665 doses and injected at least 12,920 first doses and 2,625 second doses into the arms as of January 19.
“This puts our utilization rate at 49.1%,” said Breed of the health department’s vaccination effort. The state’s utilization rate is 39.3%, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker, and the national average is 50%.
The rest of the vaccines are for those who have already received a first scheduled dose or need a second, and the health department is projected to run out of vaccines until Thursday, unless more doses are delivered before that.
The department is currently in charge of vaccinating workers at General Hospital Zuckerberg San Francisco, paramedics and other frontline workers, as well as those aged 65 or over from the San Francisco Health Network, which serves the most vulnerable people in the including uninsured patients.
These figures do not include provision in the hands of health care providers responsible for vaccinating people with insurance. Race said 102,825 doses were delivered to locations throughout the SF system, including the health department, Kaiser, Sutter Health, Dignity and others.
At the moment, health professionals are not required to disclose information about the vaccine administration, but Breed said, based on the data provided, 28,501 San Francisco residents were vaccinated (receiving at least one dose) by the Department of Public Health and the healthcare providers.
She noted that the city is far from vaccinating the first group prioritized at the state level, and in San Francisco, which covers 210,000 people, everyone who needs to receive two doses. Of these, up to 90,000 are health professionals, 11,000 home care workers, 110,000 people aged 65 and over within the San Francisco Health Network, as well as paramedics and community health workers.
“It really shows that while we are making progress, we simply need more vaccines,” said Breed.
The mayor noted that San Francisco residents are requesting daily updates on vaccine distribution and to meet this demand the city has launched a new vaccine panel that you can find here.
“This panel will tell you how many people were vaccinated in San Francisco, first and second doses, and how many doses are administered to people daily,” she said.
The data is incomplete and, to provide a clearer picture of the situation, the Department of Public Health issued an order on Tuesday requiring providers to release basic distribution data, Breed said.
“I see this health order as part of our collaboration with providers, to establish our vaccination sites and to vaccinate people quickly,” she explained. “I know we are all anxious and we want to know how we are doing, but remember, the vaccine is limited. Each dose in our possession is counted and aimed at an individual.”
Breed also praised the city’s new notification system, launched on Tuesday afternoon, where you can sign up for an alert when you are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. The registration form was available all day, and the city did not answer the question if it was crashing.
“Our city tech team worked throughout the weekend to prepare the site for what they know will be a significant interest,” said Breed.