San Francisco opened its first coronavirus vaccination site in the Mission District on Monday, with plans to open a second one at Bayview in the next few days.
The Department of Public Health described the inauguration as a “smooth launch” as it takes time to scale up operations and prepare staff and infrastructure, while the city expects more vaccine supplies to be available.
The site, located at 24 and Capp streets, will initially operate by appointment only, serving community health workers and local residents over the age of 65 within the United en Salud / United in Health network.
“COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted our Latin community, so it is so important that we are taking these vaccines directly to neighborhoods that have been hit so hard,” said Mayor London Breed in a statement. She said the city is ready to administer 10,000 vaccines a day for various mass vaccinations and smaller community sites as soon as the supply increases.
During the soft launch period, the health department said the Mission site will administer around 120 vaccines a day. The site can administer up to 400 vaccines per day as the supply increases. It will work in conjunction with the United en Salud coronavirus test site at BART Square on 24th and Mission streets, which operates four days a week.
“Today is an important milestone in our fight to combat COVID-19 and it is because of our collective partnership and mutual trust that we can bring vaccines directly to a population that has been painful and disproportionately affected by this pandemic,” said Jon Jacobo, Chair of the Latin Task Force Health Committee.
Latinos in San Francisco are being disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, making up 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.
The privately funded website emerged from a collaboration by Unidos en Salud between UCSF and the Latin Task Force, Biohub, which managed the test sites at the Mission.
“We know that the interest in being vaccinated is very strong in the community,” said Dr. Diane Havlir, professor of medicine at UCSF and co-founder of the collaboration. “We asked more than 5,000 adults who came for the test last month at the 24th Street BART plaza, and 86 percent said they were open to be vaccinated.”
The Department of Public Health said it hopes to establish vaccination sites in Bayview, Excelsior, Visitacion Valley and other neighborhoods with the highest infection rates for COVID-19. The city is also partnering with Safeway pharmacies to deliver vaccines to several neighborhoods.
Aidin Vaziri is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected]