Name: San Francisco leaders clash over timing of opening mass coronavirus vaccination sites
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San Francisco leaders clash over timing of opening mass coronavirus vaccination sites

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateAs California scrambles to rectify its slow , a number of potential — including Levi’s Stadium, the Oakland Coliseum, and — further afield — Disneyland in Anaheim and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.None have been announced in San Francisco, however — leaving at least one critic frustrated.“Let's make this happen in SF,” tweeted Supervisor Matt Haney. “It can be at Oracle, at Kezar, at many of the sites all over the city that have been used for testing. We can do this — it's time for mass, widespread distribution of this vaccine in SF and beyond, led by our Dept of Public Health.”The city is looking into mass vaccination sites and is identifying “several sites” that could serve as massive distribution points, according to Mayor London Breed and health director Dr. Grant Colfax. At a press conference Tuesday, neither she nor Colfax said which venue might take the role. They said there are not enough vaccine doses available yet to need a large-scale site.Breed and Colfax also said setting up one massive site for vaccine distributions would not serve those who need the vaccine the most — homeless, uninsured or undocumented — in the first phases of a roll out.“It can’t just be about one large, massive site,” Breed said. “One lesson we learned from our testing system was that we need to work with our community partners, and meet our most impacted communities where they are.”So far, the Health Department has distributed 22,150 doses of the vaccine to San Francisco General Hospital, Laguna Honda Hospital and small community clinics, a spokesperson said Tuesday. Of those, 9,259 have been administered.The earliest people eligible for the vaccine under the state guidelines include those working in hospitals and people working or living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Colfax said some San Franciscans under the next tier — people 65 and older — will be offered the vaccine sometime this week.The city wants to first look toward localized community sites to vaccinate people who might fall through the city’s health care cracks, Breed said. San Francisco is identifying “several sites” that could serve as massive distribution points, Breed said.Colfax also said the city simply doesn’t have enough vaccines at the moment to justify opening a massive site.“When we have a sufficient supply of vaccine to meet the need for a mass vaccination site, we expect to have that site up and running,” Colfax said.But Haney, reached by telephone on Tuesday, said it was “incredibly inappropriate and just flat-out wrong” for the department to task private providers with distribution. Instead, he said, they should take responsibility for widespread distribution in the city. He suggested the city should open a mass distribution site, like those being planned or considered in Oakland and Santa Clara.Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.Coronavirus VaccineHaney called for a hearing on the city’s vaccine distribution plan at Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting. The supervisor himself — a frequent critic of the city’s Department of Public Health — has no direct power to change the city’s strategy in distributing the extremely limited vaccine supply, as that is ultimately up to the state and local Department of Public Health.Still, he called for a more aggressive roll out in San Francisco, suggesting that there should be, for example, “a massive site in the Mission,” where Latino residents have been particularly hard hit by the virus.The San Francisco Department of Public Health is “explicitly deferring this responsibility in ways that other counties are not,” he said. "They are going to have to change this. .. If people don't have a site, like they did with COVID testing, this is not going to work."The Health Department declined to comment on Haney’s criticisms Tuesday.Michael Williams and Trisha Thadani are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: ;Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the status of the sites at the Oakland Coliseum and Levi’s Stadium. Talks to make them into mass vaccination sites are ongoing.Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateAs California scrambles to rectify its slow , a number of potential — including Levi’s Stadium, the Oakland Coliseum, and — further afield — Disneyland in Anaheim and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.None have been announced in San Francisco, however — leaving at least one critic frustrated.“Let's make this happen in SF,” tweeted Supervisor Matt Haney. “It can be at Oracle, at Kezar, at many of the sites all over the city that have been used for testing. We can do this — it's time for mass, widespread distribution of this vaccine in...

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Trisha Thadani is a City Hall reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle. She previously covered work-based immigration and local startups for the paper’s business section.  Thadani graduated from Boston University with a degree in journalism. Before joining The Chronicle, she held internships at The Boston Globe, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and was a Statehouse correspondent for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/author/trisha-thadani/

Trisha Thadani

Michael Williams

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San Francisco leaders clash over timing of opening mass coronavirus vaccination sites

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