San Francisco opened its first neighborhood coronavirus vaccination site in the Mission District on Monday, with plans to open a second in the Bayview in the coming days.
The Health Ministry described the opening as a “soft launch” as it will take time to ramp up operations and prepare personnel and infrastructure while the city waits for more vaccine to become available.
The site, located at 24th and Capp Streets, will initially operate on an appointment basis, serving community health workers and local residents over 65 within the Unidos and Salud / United in Health network.
“COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on our Latino community, which is why it is so important that we bring these vaccines directly to the neighborhoods that have been hit so hard,” Mayor London Breed said in a statement. She said the city is poised to administer 10,000 vaccines a day at several mass vaccinations and smaller community sites once the supply increases.
During the soft launch period, the health department said the mission site will administer about 120 vaccinations per day. The site can administer up to 400 vaccinations per day as the supply increases. It will partner with the Unidos and Salud coronavirus testing site in BART Square at 24th and Mission Street, 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 trust in each other that we can bring vaccines directly to a population painfully and disproportionately affected by this pandemic,” said Jon Jacobo. chair of the health committee of the Latino Task Force.
Latinos in San Francisco are disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic, which, according to the most recent public health data, make up more than 42% of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city, despite making up only 15% of the population. They are also responsible for more than 20% of deaths from the disease.
The privately funded site emerged from a Unidos and Salud collaboration between UCSF and the Latino Task Force, Biohub, which ran the test sites in the mission.
“We know that the interest in getting 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 to test at 24th Street BART Square last month, and 86 percent said they are open to vaccination.”
The Health Department said it hopes to set up neighborhood vaccinations in Bayview, Excelsior, Visitacion Valley and other neighborhoods with the highest COVID-19 contamination rates. The city is also working with Safeway pharmacies to deliver vaccines to various neighborhoods.
Aidin Vaziri is a staff writer at San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected]