San Francisco’s first mass vaccination site met its goal of inoculating at least 500 people per day over the weekend, but the launch was not without issues.
UCSF, which is providing the shots for now, announced it was able to vaccinate nearly 1,100 people on Friday and Saturday at the new site at City College of San Francisco.
"I think there’s been some positive things that have taken place over the last week or so," said San Francisco Supervisor Matt Haney.
Haney called the site a good step forward for the city, but some issues still need to be worked out.
"I’m still very vocal about the need for a portal for people to actually make appointments at these sites," he said. Haney plans to introduce legislation to create a single portal for city residents.
"There was a lot of confusion over the weekend where there was an Eventbrite registration link for the site at City College that was released and caused a mad scramble for those appointments. That process of actually accessing the appointments in a transparent way really needs to be improved."
As of Sunday, UCSF is still using Eventbrite to manage vaccine appointments.
Haney said some residents who were not able to get one of the coveted appointments showed up at the site anyway, in the hopes that they would have a few leftover doses available at the end of the day.
Eventually, the city hopes to have multiple healthcare providers on site giving 3,000 shots per day, but that will require a higher supply of the vaccine, which is decided by the federal and state governments. Even at the current pace, the site is going to run out of doses by the end of the week unless they get an unexpected allocation.
Haney said the logistical challenges are secondary to the lack of supply.
Once that increases, "then you will also see us move to expand eligibility and start to reach some of those other priority populations."
California is still working to vaccinate long term care residents and the elderly.
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