After a nine months of sickness, shutdowns and unrelenting viral surges, some relief came to San Franciscans Tuesday, as the first round of COVID-19 vaccinations were administered in the city.
Front line health workers at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine this morning, after 2,000 doses arrived at the hospital on Monday.
Mayor London Breed shared footage of a vaccination being administered to a health care worker at the hospital on Tuesday morning, writing, “There is an end to this pandemic in sight. Let’s do everything we can to keep each other safe until we get there.”
Elsewhere in the city, UCSF senior public information representative Elizabeth Fernandez told SFGATE the hospital will receive the vaccine on Wednesday and begin to administer it Thursday.
More good news for Californians arrived on Monday evening, as Gov. Gavin Newsom announced via tweet that a second shipment of the Pfizer vaccination was on its way to the state.
“Just got word from Pfizer — CA is now expecting 393,000 more doses of the #COVID19 to arrive next week. Excellent news as we begin to vaccinate healthcare workers and long term care residents across the state.” Newsom wrote.
In Davis, CBS reporter David Begnaud shared footage of the vaccines being removed from freezers and making their way to the vaccination room on Tuesday morning.
San Francisco’s COVID-19 surge is still “dire,” however, according to Department of Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax, who reported on Monday via a virtual briefing that city health officials have seen an average of 200 new cases per day. He also stated that the number of available intensive care unit hospital beds in the Bay Area fell from 26 percent to 17 percent within the last week.
“If the hospital census keeps rising at the current rate, San Francisco will run out of intensive care unit beds within the next three to four weeks,” Colfax said.