Vaccine lines are short as SF opens first weekend monkeypox clinic
Monkeypox clinics in San Francisco opened on a Saturday morning for the first time. It was meant to give people the opportunity to get a shot outside of normal business hours.
SAN FRANCISCO, Cali. - Monkeypox clinics in San Francisco opened on a Saturday morning for the first time. It was meant to give people the opportunity to get a shot outside of normal business hours.
As usual, people seeking a vaccine arrived to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital hours before it opened to get a spot in line.
Carlos Munoz showed up early from Oakland because he saw pictures and videos of how long the lines could stretch.
"I heard people waited two or three hours in line," he said. So I decided to get here as early as possible."
He waited a total of 10 minutes to get his vaccines. The same story goes for Benjamin Tran, who traveled from San Mateo.
"I brought my book and everything," said Tran. "I expected to wait an hour plus."
People showing up walked right in and walked right out with a vaccine. It was the case as well at the city's second walk-up vaccine site at Kaiser Permanente's campus along Geary in San Francisco.
"It's really about wanting to be the best community resource that we can be," said Dr. Susan Ehrlich, CEO of SF General. "It's about having enough vaccine to be able to be open on a Saturday."
This weekend's vaccine supply came from the 10,000 dose allotment received by the San Francisco Department of Public Health earlier this week.
While it might be easy to come to the conclusion that low wait times mean public health leaders are making progress, UCSF infectious disease doctor Peter Chin-Hong says not to read too much into the short lines.
"I think it's just the tip of the demand right now," he said. "It's just people who can get on their phone, hear from friends who are connected who know when things are open and how long they're open."
Dr. Chin-Hong says the next step is attempting to vaccinate people who aren't easy to reach; people who can't make it to the clinics or don't have access to resources on knowing when those clinics are open.
"There are a lot of things I think we can aspire to, but we're not there yet," said Dr. Chin-Hong.
Another step to consider - when can health officials begin administering a second dose of the vaccine. For the time being, you can only get a second dose, per doctors orders.
According to SFDPH, a second vaccine is available for people who have moderate to severe immune compromise as they may not develop immunity after just one dose. This includes people on active cancer treatment, people who are taking medicine to suppress the immune system, and people with advanced or untreated HIV infection, among other conditions.
It's still not clear when second doses for the general public will be readily available, nor when another shipment of vaccines will arrive in San Francisco.