COVID Vaccine: SF Lawmaker Urges Mass Vaccination Sites In Stadiums To Speed Up Slow Rollout
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) - When do you get your two doses of COVID-19 vaccine in San Francisco, where and how do you sign up?
Those are questions District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney wants answered. He says he and his constituents are getting the runaround.
"When they go to their private provider, like Kaiser, what they're being told is you should talk to the county, so there's this ridiculous merry-go-round happening with one of the most important life or death responsibilities that a government has ever had in the history of this city," Haney said Tuesday.
He says San Francisco is shirking responsibility by punting vaccine distribution to private providers and wants to see a website to sign up, as well as mass vaccination sites all around the city.
"We certainly took a different approach when it came to testing, where we had testing sites all over the city, there was a centralized place where you could get an appointment regardless of insurance status," said Haney. "We have to do the same thing with vaccines and we have to do it right now."
"Over 95 percent of San Franciscans are covered by some of form of private or public health care providers and that is why our partnership with major healthcare providers are so important for distribution of vaccine," Doctor Grant Colfax from the Department of Public Health said in a news conference on Tuesday.
Supervisor Haney insists sites like Kezar Stadium, former testing sites on the Embarcadero, Oracle Park and Chase Center should be used to provide vaccine doses.
He's concerned about already overtaxed hospital workers getting the vaccine workload put on their shoulders.
"Kaiser, for example, has a hospital with a bunch of other stuff going on including treatment of people for COVID - they have a set number of nurses and staff," said Haney. "They're not going to be able to do this at a massive scale."
Dr. Colfax said some sites are being considered for larger distribution.
"When we have enough vaccine for a mass vaccination site we expect to have that site up and running," he said. "Our goal is to have these open as fast as possible when the state supplies us with more vaccine."
