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Newsom declares monkeypox 'State of Emergency': Vaccine clinic at SF General reopens
Hundreds lined up in the early morning hours in San Francisco waiting hours for the limited doses of monkeypox vaccine. The first patients looking for monkeypox vaccine began lining up before dawn on Monday, hoping for one of the limited doses. By late afternoon, California's Governor Gavin Newsom declared the disease a state of emergency in response to the outbreak.
SAN FRANCISCO - One day after California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state emergency over monkeypox and days after San Francisco declared its own health emergency, state public health officials said the city would receive double the amount of vaccines than previous allotments.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health said the city will receive 10,700 doses of the monkeypox vaccine.
"This is more than double of what we’ve received in previous allotments," the department said in a tweet.
Local public health officials said there is no specific date to when the vaccines will arrive.
San Francisco declared a public health emergency over monkeypox last week that went into effect Aug. 1. While state officials have sought to reassure the public that the risk of contracting monkeypox remains very low, efforts to procure more doses of the Jynneos vaccine for smallpox and monkeypox have hampered a swift effort to curb the outbreak.
"It will give me a lot of peace of mind, it will make me feel a lot better about going out and meeting people, hanging out with people, and not worrying about if I have a pimple or something worse," said Cameron Lucas about receiving the vaccine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
The hospital is rationing its limited doses, prioritizing those currently in the highest risks groups.
"This epidemic is mostly among men who have sex with other men, so we're really trying to get the vaccine out to men who have had multiple sex partners in the last few days," said CEO of Zuckerberg-SF General Hospital, Susan Elrich.
But, for those who arrived too late on Monday, they were out of luck. J.J. Is one of those who missed out on a dose. He said it feels like there is a lack of urgency to protect the LGBTQ community. "I was like, fine, I'll just wait in line and the direct person in front of me in line was the cutoff point. So, it is frustrating at this point," said J.J. "At this point it's par for the course, I know we get the short end of the stick all the time."
The department of public health shared that frustration, saying medical staff administered 950 doses at Monday's clinic, after having received 4,200 doses Friday. The department said it receives its vaccine allocation from the federal government via the California Department of Public Health. Part of the frustration for public health leaders is they do not know when they will receive an allotment or how much, making difficult to plan.
The state had received just over 37,000 doses of the two-dose vaccine as of Friday, with the expectation of receiving another 72,000 doses as soon as this week.