COVID Vaccine: San Francisco Teachers, Food Service Workers, Emergency Personnel To Begin Next Phase In 2 Weeks
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- San Francisco will begin vaccinating the next group eligible for the COVID vaccine, including teachers, food service workers and emergency services personnel beginning in two weeks.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed made the announcement during a Tuesday morning press conference where she was updating the city's response to the pandemic.
"I have some good news: that starting on February 24, San Francisco will move to Phase 1B Tier 1, and eligible people for that phase include our education and childcare workers, our emergency services workers including our police officers, and our food and agricultural employees. That's a really exciting thing," said Breed.
We're ready to start vaccinating people in Phase 1B starting on Feb. 24th. This includes essential workers in food & agriculture sectors, educators & childcare professionals, & emergency service workers.
We're ready to keep ramping up as soon as we start receiving more vaccines. pic.twitter.com/jwwPkp1ydC
— London Breed (@LondonBreed) February 9, 2021
Vaccine supply is still limited, and while those eligible may not be able to get an appointment right away, more appointments will be added as supply increases.
More details on when residents will be eligible for the vaccine in San Francisco, including how to sign up to be notified, is available on the city's COVID vaccination website.
Breed said the city now has the capacity to deliver over 10,000 vaccines a day. Currently, the city is averaging 4,300 vaccines a day, up from 1,800 a day last month.
San Francisco Public Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax said Tuesday during the press conference that most of the vaccines delivered have been in the city's southeastern sector, which has seen a disproportionate amount of COVID cases.
Colfax also offered a concerning note about the city's case rate, noting that new cases of COVID-19 have stopped declining from the peak of the third surge seen in January.
"There has been a trending up of new cases in the last several days. Now we are averaging 135 new cases a day. That's certainly much better than when we were at our peak surge and averaging 373 new cases per day -- and that was just one month ago -- but our case rate still remains higher than any other previous surge," said Colfax.
Colfax added that the current rate of 15.5 new cases per 100,000 people is about the same as the peak of last summer's surge, and San Francisco's goal is for the case rate to drop down to less than 1.8 per 100,000 residents.
Hospitalizations are still trending down, as are ICU admissions, Colfax said. As of Tuesday, there were 148 people hospitalized for COVID, and the city showed a 28% ICU capacity.
