SF Opens First Community Vaccination Site in Mission District

February 1, 2021

The city’s first community vaccination site, with the smell of burning sage, opened today at 9am in the heart of the Mission District, right next to 24th Avenue and Mission Street, without cars and fenced. It was planted in a rectangular parking lot. With four large white tents and technicians and nurses, we are ready to vaccinate in the community with the highest proportion of Covid-19 cases in the city.

According to DPH, the opening was a victory for UCSF, the Latin American Task Force, and the Public Health Service, eventually taking over the site and opening in other affected communities, first Bayview and then other areas. Will be.

After a soft launch this week, offering only 120 vaccines a day, the mission site will run four days a week, Sunday to Wednesday, from 9 am to 2 pm, with some supplies potentially reaching 400 vaccines a day. .. The Unidosen Salud Union, opposite the BART Plaza, will continue its rapid inspection of Covid-19 at the same time. It will resume on Wednesday.

Diane Habril, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and co-founder of Unidos Ensalud, a partnership between the University of California, San Francisco and the Latin American Task Force, which has been testing and researching on a mission since mid-April Earlier this morning, he wrote: Taking this step, she felt, “I hope the partnership can accelerate access to the vaccine, and if the supply increases, I’ll be ready.”

“It’s surreal,” said John Jacobo, head of the Latin Task Force, when the first person walked to the scene an hour before being vaccinated. “Look at it. Wow. This is huge. Milestone. It happened only for trust in all our partners, communities, UCSF, and the city. Trust in community-led efforts.”

An hour later, he burned sage and greeted the local health care workers with a lively child on Christmas morning.

Early in the morning, volunteers, doctors and technicians who had been involved in the Unidos en Salud campaign from the beginning entered the scene and witnessed the last-minute details. “I couldn’t sleep last night,” said Chesa Cox of the University of California, San Francisco, who put up a sign announcing the vaccination.

Doctors Haveril and Karina Marquez arrive in skirts and heels, usually in jeans and puff vests or jackets, and are ready to arrive late in the morning with the Mayor of London Breed and the director of the Public Health Grant Corfax. I did. Retired HIV nurse and initiative leader Diane Jones rode a bike and people like Susana and Susie Rojas arrived on foot.

“It’s really exciting to reach this point,” Marquez said. James Peng of UCSF, who has been involved since the start of April, agreed. He said that was what they had been waiting for.

Early on, Unidos en Salud’s work provided clues as to the nature of the virus and why the Latin population accounted for many of the urban cases: many carriers are asymptomatic and in place. I couldn’t evacuate and often lived in a crowded state where the virus was easily infected.

These attributes have been transformed into epidemics of the Latino population. This is only 15% of the city’s population, 42-50% of all San Francisco cases In the process of a pandemic.

Testing of working-class Latinos was at the forefront of the Unidos-en-Saludo coalition last year, and today’s vaccination sites demand funding power from the UCSF and Latin task forces, and more vaccines. I’ve been working for a few weeks. , Permit, and orchestration from DPH.

“I’m going to do this,” Jacobo said last Thursday when he received a call to help raise funds.

And they did.

Donors have stepped up as Dr. Sam Hawgood, Prime Minister of Jacobo, Havlir and UCSF, facilitated numerous telephone efforts. According to the campaign’s press release, these include the Chanzuckerberg Initiative, the McKinnon Family Foundation, Karl Kawaja, Wendy Holcomb, and donors to the UCSF COVID-19 Response Fund and the Unidosen Salud / United in Health San Francisco Project.

“By continuing our collaborative community testing program and making vaccines available in high-impact areas where the virus is rapidly spreading, we can prevent further distress and protect the entire city from the virus.” Hogood said in a press release.

Already, Havlir added, they knew from a recent survey More than 6,000 people are hard They were anxious for the vaccine to reach the Latino population they were testing Covid-19.

This week, the site gets off to a slow start and will first vaccinate community health care workers on Monday and Tuesday. After that, if you are 65 years of age or older, or if you are a healthcare professional who has not been vaccinated by your employer, the shot will be open to the public by appointment.

Already, they have notified residents from their database of people over the age of 65 that they have tested. The campaign tested about 30,000 people, and 55% of those tested do not have health insurance. Another 10% with health insurance are not connected to a provider.

The Unidos campaign follows state guidelines on who can be tested, but can be pulled from a database to test people who can’t go through a private insurance company.

The UCSF / Latino Task Force test and research campaign had a low-barrier walk-up test at the core, so by running it as a booking site, everyone was “hyperventilated,” said Jones, a former UCSF nurse. I will.

To ensure access, the team has a table that helps qualified – current healthcare professionals and 65+ – to register their appointments directly. The need was seen on Monday morning before the site opened when an elderly gentleman walking with a cane approached the table. He was informed that he could go online and register, but was unable to navigate the online process.

“This is a perfect example of why this is needed,” Jones said.

And right after the site opened, seven people were lined up trying to get on the vaccination list. Others who had already made promises were quietly waiting along the fence.

The two tents are equipped with multiple vaccination chairs. This week, the site uses Moderna vaccination and is giving those who get it an appointment for a second vaccination.

“My dream is that in the end, people will come and be tested (at the 24th BART Plaza Rapid Test) and vaccinated across the street. If they are positive, They enter the response department and move to the vaccination arm in quarantine and safely. “

Mayor of London Breed and Dr. Grant Corfax, Director of Public Health, will visit the site at 10:30 am. Bleed said in a press release: “This vaccination site is an important step in providing convenient and culturally competent vaccine access. To the mission district.”

Colfax added: “The 24th Street site, a community-based site co-located with existing testing capabilities, is a model for reaching all communities in San Francisco.”

The city envisions the mission district site as the first of many community vaccination sites in the neighborhood that have been disproportionately affected by the virus.

“It’s by people for people,” said Norma Lewis, who works for Mission Girls and volunteers at the Latin American Task Force hub. She arrived today to put her name on the list of vaccines. “It’s great that our community has access.”

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