SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Now that her city's state of emergency for monkeypox has been in effect for a week, San Francisco Mayor London Breed says the federal rollout of vaccines is "just unacceptable."
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom followed Breed's lead and declared a state of emergency last Tuesday, one day after San Francisco's declaration took effect. Federal officials then declared a public health emergency last Thursday.
But Breed told KCBS Radio’s Patti Reising and Bret Burkhart on Monday afternoon that the city and state remain well short of the doses public health officials say are necessary.
"We need, about, at least 70,000 vaccines," Breed said. "The entire state needs about 800,000 vaccines, and my understanding is that about a million are expecting to be distributed throughout the entire United States. That's just unacceptable. We need more."
On July 28, the same day Breed declared a state of emergency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that its vaccine distribution would reach 1.1 million total doses after allocating 786,000 to public health departments across the country. The agency said last month it has ordered 6.9 million doses, which the U.S. will only have full access to in the middle of next year.
Of the federal government's 786,000 new doses, San Francisco said it received more than 10,000, allowing officials to reopen a walk-in clinic at San Francisco General Hospital beginning on Tuesday. The city had received just over 12,000 doses before the latest allotment.
In the meantime, monkeypox cases continue to spread in the city and across the state. San Francisco reported 472 probable or confirmed monkeypox cases through Sunday, according to the Department of Public Health. California, in its most recent report last Thursday, listed 1,310 probable or confirmed cases.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed 7,510 confirmed national cases on Monday. Aside from California, the agency's data listed only five states and territories with more confirmed cases than San Francisco's probable and confirmed total.
"We have about a third of the cases in the state of California, and I feel like we're starting to get some recognition," Breed said. "We have even more cases than most states in the country, so my hope is that with the governor declaring a state of emergency and then the feds finally paying more attention to this that they would move a lot more aggressively. But I have yet to see the things that we need to happen happen, and that is receiving more vaccines."
Monkeypox spreads through prolonged skin-to-skin contact, as often occurs during kissing, sex, sharing bedding or clothing and very close breathing. The virus has disproportionately affected gay, bisexual and queer men, with nearly 75% of the cases reported through last Wednesday among people who self-identified as gay, lesbian or "same-gender loving" to public health officials.
Another 21.2% declined to state their sexual identity, perhaps owing to the stigma surrounding the virus. Although public health officials have stressed that anyone can contract monkeypox regardless of their gender or sexual identity, Bay Area News Group obtained city documents showing that the public health department quietly stopped contact tracing last month after many infected people officials interviewed were unable or unwilling to name their sexual partners.
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