San Francisco City College was able to vaccinate hundreds of residents on Friday morning with the coronavirus vaccine, sparking a wave of relief that they finally have a better chance at winning against the infectious disease.
The area is the city’s first mass vaccination site and was able to inoculate about 500 residents with the treatment, opening at around 8:00 a.m. Officials said that people could expect to see about 10,000 more doses by next week.
COVID-19 Vaccination
While the San Francisco City College would be open during the weekend to provide the vaccine, it will only accept appointments in the meantime. Officials also said that all appointments have already been filled up.
The inoculation process is also currently prioritizing health care workers, residents of long term care facilities, and people who are 65 years or older. However, there are rumors spreading in Sacramento that officials would be prioritizing age over other factors in who will get vaccinated first.
San Francisco City Mayor London Breed said the change of prioritization would be an unfavorable decision. “Our schools are still closed, we need to prioritize our educators, our police officers are on the front line still making arrests and dealing with the challenges of the city,” she said.
Those who have received their vaccinations on Friday were given hope that the coronavirus pandemic could soon be over. However, San Francisco is still struggling to inoculate its residents due to the dwindling supply from the federal government.
Despite several thousands of Moderna’s vaccine being made available for use after an allergic reaction incident, Mayor Breed said earlier this week that the city could run out of its supply of doses by Thursday.
San Francisco officials said they planned to inoculate all of its residents before the end of June, which requires them to vaccinate about 10,000 people each day. Additionally, Breed noted that San Francisco had a different inoculation process to most other Bay Area cities.
“Many of the people who work for the city and county of San Francisco also live in other places. We’re helping the entire region, so that has to be taken into consideration. I am being very aggressive with the state about our need to get more vaccines now,” said Mayor Breed.
Fortunately, San Francisco has been seeing a decrease in its positivity rate in recent days, giving business owners a glimmer of hope that they could soon be allowed to reopen, ABC7 News reported.
City officials built two other mass vaccination sites other than the City College and are scheduled to operate by February 1. They are located at Moscone Center and at the San Francisco Wholesale Produce Market.
Private health care providers, including Kaiser Permanente, Dignity Health, and Sutter Health, are going to be running in coordination with the mass vaccination sites to help inoculate residents.
