Mass vaccination site opens Friday at San Francisco's Moscone Center
Moscone Center mass vaccination site opens Friday
San Francisco's Moscone Center is set to open Friday as a mass COVID vaccination center. KTVU's Christien Kafton reports they face the common problem of not having enough doses to meet demand.
SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco is preparing to open a new mass vaccination site Friday. The site at The Moscone Center alone can vaccinate as many as 10,000 per day, but it faces the same problems we've been hearing about for weeks now: supply.
The Moscone Center site opens Friday morning. When it's up and running, this site alone would be able to meet the city's goals for daily vaccinations.
"San Francisco has a goal to deliver at least minimum 10,000 per day," said Mayor London Breed. "This site, on its own can basically do that."
The site will begin inoculating 1,400 to 1,500 people per day, ramping up to about 4,000 per day by next week, and currently has enough vaccine on hand to make appointments through next Thursday.
City leaders and private medical providers who've partnered with the city say the limiting factor remains access to more vaccine.
"This is the largest mass vaccination site in the state of California, with a 10,000 per day capacity, only limited by vaccine supply," said Janet Liang from Kaiser Permanente.
While the city ramps up its vaccine response, Supervisor Matt Haney is pushing for increased transparency and a clear plan from the city's department of public health on how the vaccination rollout is going, and what the plans are going forward.
"It will create a clear and comprehensive vaccination plan that addresses how we are going to vaccinate 900,000 people in San Francisco by June 30th, a commitment Department of Public Health has made," said Supervisor Haney.
SF DPH said it is continuing to develop that plan, and again, said the rollout depends heavily on how much vaccine they can get their hands on.
On Tuesday of this week, the mass vaccination site at City College of San Francisco had to restrict hours because it didn't have enough vaccine on hand.
"The chief obstacle that we're facing is vaccine supply," said Naveena Bobba, Deputy Director of Health at San Francisco Department of Public Health.
"So, even in our mass vaccination sites they can gear up to a much larger amount, we just don't have those amounts coming into San Francisco at this time."
San Francisco also launched a new get vaccinated web page, to connect those who are eligible to receive the vaccination with locations that can administer the shots.