Monkeypox vaccine shortage slows Bay Area health officials' response
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) -- Bay Area health leaders said Thursday they share the frustration of people who waited in line for hours trying to get doses of the monkeypox vaccine.
"I'm happy I got it and I don't have to worry about it now," said Wyatt Robertson, a San Francisco resident who got his first dose Wednesday. "I think that, because there was a lack of information about it, people were a lot more scared about it."
Robertson was among hundreds who went to Berkeley for a shot of the vaccine at Steamworks which hosted a pop-up clinic in partnership with the city's health department.
"There was a lot of confusion in the line about what would happen but people thought that we would then have to pay," he told KPIX on Wednesday.
The city of Berkeley health department said it was still calculating how many vaccine doses were given on Wednesday and that it would not know the amount of doses available next Wednesday or at future clinics until the state's health department divulges how much vaccine it can allocate based on its supply from the federal government.
Jon Wong is an Oakland resident who got the vaccine on Wednesday at Steamworks after waiting more than six hours.
"A pay-to-play, fast-pass experience in my opinion, which is frankly wrong and absurd given that it is a public health crisis," he said.
While Wong and others shared concerns about customers of Steamworks getting preference on Wednesday over those who didn't pay, the city of Berkeley could not confirm if that happened at the clinic. A Steamworks employee told KPIX there was some confusion but no preference to their customers. They had two separate lines next to each other, one for people checking into the club and another for vaccinations. Staff say they gave out 500 doses by the end of the day.
"We are still seeing just an incredible amount of fear and concern and demand from the community that wants access to the vaccine now," said Tyler TerMeer, CEO of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. "I think we're in a moment that truly could have been prevented by having a stronger, more coordinated public response."
TerMeer says they receive more than 500 calls a day with questions and concerns related to monkeypox. They have a waiting list for eligible vaccine recipients with more than 2,700 people signed up. The organization's health clinic in the Castro District will have a vaccine event on Sunday for 500 people on that waiting list.
"There is, in this moment, most definitely a federal public health failure to be responsive and to be prepared for what was a very foreseeable outbreak of monkeypox," TerMeer said.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health asked for 35,000 doses from the federal government earlier this week and still has not heard back on that request. SFDPH says it has given out around 2,800 doses of the vaccine so far but ran out of supply this week. There are 10 sites ready to administer shots when more vaccine arrives.
"This is a community that really needs vaccine as quickly as possible and our commitment at the local level is that as soon as we get vaccine, people know where they can go," said Dr. Grant Colfax, the director of SFPDH. "At the local level, we are ready, we have multiple sites ready to go because of COVID."
The mayor's office said in a statement Thursday that, while the majority of monkeypox cases are affecting LGBT people, the disease is highly transmissible and can infect anyone. The city's top priority is distributing vaccines fast and efficiently citywide, the statement went on to say.
"Unfortunately, I can't -- we can't -- manufacture the vaccine locally and so it's really about ensuring that we have a more robust federal response and that's where our focus is now," Dr. Colfax said.
If SFPDH can get the requested 35,000 doses, city leaders believe that would be a starting point to get closer to vaccinating everyone who will benefit from that protection.
"I'm just grateful for the community that I live in and really grateful for the people who have been sharing all the information," Robertson said.
WEBLINK: San Francisco monkeypox information site.
