San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in a Tuesday press briefing the city's health department will run out of its vaccine allotment this week and there's a desperate need for more doses. Breed shared this news on the same day the city launched a new notification system allowing you to sign up to get a text or email when you're eligible for the vaccine.
The S.F. Department of Public Health has received 31,665 doses and injected at least 12,920 first doses and 2,625 second doses into arms as of Jan. 19.
"That puts our utilization rate at 49.1%," Breed said of the health department's vaccine effort. The state's utilization rate is 39.3%, according to Bloomberg's vaccine tracker, and the national average is 50%.
The remaining vaccines are earmarked for those who have already been scheduled to receive a first dose or who need a second, and the health department is projected to run out of vaccines by Thursday, unless more doses are delivered before then.
The department is currently charged with vaccinating workers at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, EMTs and other frontline workers, as well as those 65 and over within the San Francisco Health Network, which serves the most vulnerable people in the city, including patients without insurance.
These numbers don't include the supply in the hands of health care providers who are charged with vaccinating those with insurance. Breed said 102,825 doses have been delivered to locations throughout the entire S.F. system, including to the health department, Kaiser, Sutter Health, Dignity and others.
Health care providers aren't currently required to release information on vaccine administration, but Breed said based on the data that has been provided, 28,501 San Franciscans have been vaccinated (receiving at least one dose) by both the Department of Public Health and health care providers.
She noted the city is a long way from vaccinating the first group prioritized in the state plan, and in San Francisco that encompasses 210,000 people, all who need to receive two doses. Of those, up to 90,000 are health care workers, 11,000 home care workers, 110,000 people age 65 and over within the San Francisco Health Network, as well as EMTs and community health care workers.
"This really shows while we are making progress, we simply need more vaccines," Breed said.
The mayor noted that San Francisco residents are calling for daily updates on vaccine distribution and to meet this demand the city launched a new vaccine dashboard that you can find here.
"This dashboard will tell you how many people have been vaccinated in San Francisco, first and second dose, and how many doses are given to people daily," she said.
The data is currently incomplete, and to provide a more clear picture of the situation, the Department of Public Health issued an order Tuesday requiring providers to release basic distribution data, Breed said.
"I view this health order as part of our collaboration with providers, to set up our vaccine sites and to get people vaccinated quickly," she explained. "I know we are all anxious and want to know how we are doing, but remember, the vaccine is in limited supply. Every single dose in our possession is accounted for and earmarked for an individual."
Breed also touted the city's new notification system, launched Tuesday afternoon, where you can sign up to receive an alert when you're eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. The registration form was available on and off throughout the day, and the city didn't respond to a question about whether it was crashing.
"Our city technology staff have been working all weekend to prepare the site for what they know will be a significant amount of interest," Breed said.
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