'Public health failure' – Gov't monkeypox response upsets SF lawmakers, LGBTQ community
SAN FRANCISCO – As the monkeypox outbreak grows, two San Francisco lawmakers along with the LGBTQ community have become frustrated over the federal government's response and the lack of available vaccines.
- Get additional information on monkeypox from the San Francisco Department of Public Health | How to request the monkeypox vaccine in SF
"Monkeypox is a growing public health issue in our community. While the virus can infect anyone, it is particularly impacting gay and bisexual men," said a joint statement from State Sen. Scott Wiener and Assemblymember Matt Haney.
Vaccination is how we control Monkeypox before it spreads broadly.
— Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) July 8, 2022
The feds need to accelerate purchase & distribution of the vaccine.
We need to push the vaccine out aggressively at the local level.
Working together we will protect each other.@MattHaneySF & my statement: pic.twitter.com/qAupBRQzO2
"The good news is that we have an effective vaccine that prevents monkeypox. The bad news is that the federal government has once again had a public health failure, this time by failing to order enough vaccine doses to prepare for this foreseeable outbreak," Wiener and Haney said. "It's completely unacceptable that the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and other community clinics are receiving so few doses."
The lawmakers went on to say there is little time left to prevent the outbreak from getting out of control.
In an interview with KPIX 5 on Friday, Wiener said, "If we don't get ahead of this virus and contain it, it's not just going to be affecting just gay and bi men. It's going to move out into the general population."
Dr. Tyler TerMeer, CEO of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation Clinic, told KPIX 5 on Thursday that they are in urgent need to doses, as California cases have doubled in the past week.
"We need something like 6,000 doses just to vaccinate our patient population we see," TerMeer said.
Wiener said more vaccines have been ordered by the federal government, but it's not fast enough.
In San Francisco's Castro on Friday, there was a growing sense of frustration about a lack of cohesive information about where to get the monkeypox vaccine and how to protect against the virus.
Castro resident Christopher Vasquez got the first of a two-dose monkeypox vaccine on Thursday, and said his phone is constantly full of text messages from people who don't know where to get the vaccine.
"How do you find where to go? Because nobody knows what's going on, or the information is not found easily," Vasquez told KPIX 5.
Where he lives, Vasquez meets friends on the street who opt for an elbow-bump greeting instead of handshakes. One man said to Vasquez, "I don't want to get the monkeypox."
KPIX 5's calls to county leaders on the vaccine supply went unreturned as of the airing of this story on Friday. So, in the absence of information, Vasquez said cellphone text messages and watching social media are how he and others are learning about how or where to get the vaccine.
"We shouldn't be having to do this on our own. And I think that's where a lot of the frustration exists. We are being failed by our federal, state and local health authorities again," Vasquez said.
According to the San Francisco Department of Public Health, there were 40 cases of the monkeypox among city residents as of Wednesday, up 24 from the previous week.
Additional information on the availability of the monkeypox vaccine is available online here.
Reed Cowan contributed to this report.