San Francisco officials said on Wednesday that they expect all eligible residents to be vaccinated by June, but meeting that target will require a huge increase in the number of daily vaccinations and a huge jump in available supplies.
“The main obstacle is that there are not enough doses,” said Roland Pickens, CEO of the San Francisco Health Network, at a hearing on the Board of Supervisors on Wednesday. “We recognize that the process has been slow and frustrating for all of us.”
As of Monday, only 3.4% of the San Francisco population had received a dose of the vaccine. This amounts to 29,599 people. Meanwhile, only 0.7% of the population – or 6,483 people – received a second dose.
There are about 870,000 residents in San Francisco, but children are unlikely to be eligible until June. Currently, people must be at least 16 years old to receive the vaccine.
County officials across California complained that the state and federal governments provided an insufficient and unpredictable vaccine supply. This made it difficult to plan how many appointments can be made on a given day and how much staff is needed to administer the vaccines.
The public health department and private health providers are vaccinating about 3,000 people a day in San Francisco, Pickens said. To meet the city’s goal of vaccinating everyone by June, San Francisco needs to increase to give at least 10,000 vaccines a day, he said.
“If we are successful, we need to have an unprecedented level of collaboration,” said Pickens. “This is a Herculean effort.”
On Friday, the public health department and private providers – including UCSF, Kaiser and Sutter – will help open the city’s first mass vaccination at City College on Ocean Avenue near Interstate 280.
Those who are eligible for a vaccine, such as healthcare professionals and people aged 75 and over, will be contacted by their provider and invited to the location. The city also plans to have two other mass vaccination sites – at the Moscone Center in SoMa and The SF Market, a wholesale location in Bayview – running until February 1.
It is unclear how many more doses will be available by then, as London Mayor Breed said on Tuesday that the city could run out of vaccines on Thursday. It was unclear whether that was still a concern on Wednesday.
“The main challenge will be access to a sufficient and predictable vaccine supply,” said Dr. Josh Adler of UCSF at the hearing. “One of the key points is being able to know when the vaccine is coming, and it has really been a struggle so far.”
Trisha Thadani is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected]