SF Dept of Public Health Begins COVID Vaccinations for Ages 5-11
Today the San Francisco Department of Public Health began administering COVID vaccinations for children 5-11.
Here is the full announcement from SFDPH:
The San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), health system partners and pharmacies will begin administering the vaccines largely by appointment only starting today in select locations, with SFDPH-affiliated spots and four school sites initially reserved for children in highly-impacted neighborhoods where access is crucial.
Demand for doses is expected to be high as an estimated 44,000 San Francisco children ages 5 to 11 become newly eligible. After the first few weeks, vaccine supplies are expected to increase and more evenly match the demand. For this week, SFDPH has received a shipment of 12,300 doses of the orange-capped pediatric version of the vaccine, which is one-third the dose of people 12 and older, and is distributing supplies to community and school sites, as well as independent pediatric providers. The larger health care systems and pharmacies are directly receiving separate vaccine allocations. Pediatric vaccine supply is expected to increase on a weekly basis.
We anticipate every child to have access to a vaccination over the next several weeks as we enter the busy holiday season. Parents and caregivers can make appointments using their health system’s instructions, or pharmacy websites. Other sources for vaccine appointments include the state’s vaccine booking website, myturn.ca.gov and the City’s website, sf.gov/getvaccinated, which will be updated with local information about appointments as it becomes available across the network of sites in San Francisco.
Many of the larger health systems, such as UCSF and Kaiser, will begin to book appointments on Friday and into the weekend as well as next week. Scaling up, number of larger-volume sites across the City, including those at major health systems, have the capacity to administer 500 or more doses per day, while SFDPH’s four school-based sites are expanding to accommodate 250 vaccines per day to support the school community as needed. To ensure easy access for working families and children in school, SFDPH and health system partners will hold evening and weekend vaccination sites, and pop-up events at select locations.
For more information, including how to support children during their vaccine visit, see https://sf.gov/news/sf-ready-roll-out-covid-19-vaccines-5-11-year-olds
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