The first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have arrived as expected in San Francisco.
They will be too late to fight back the current surge, which continues to worsen.
The vaccines are on their way to San Francisco’s frontline health workers.
"We received 2,000 doses of the vaccine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (Monday) morning and obviously it’s incredibly important that we vaccinate people as quickly as possible," San Francisco Public Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax said.
UCSF hospitals are also receiving some of the first vaccines.
At the same time, confirmed cases continue to climb.
New cases in San Francisco surged by 50% after Thanksgiving, which continues to put a strain on intensive care unit capacity. With San Francisco now expected to run out of ICU beds in three to four weeks, the Bay Area region came in at 17.8% total ICU capacity in numbers released Monday by the state’s Department of Public Health.
"If things worsen we will run out of beds sooner," Dr. Colfax explained. "Remember, when we run out of ICU beds we cannot adequately care for people. There are simply not enough beds and we don’t have the nurses and doctors to care for so many people."
Hospitals in Eureka, San Diego and Los Angeles also got their first shipments of the vaccine Monday. Twenty-four additional locations in California will receive their first shipments Tuesday, with five others expecting shipments Wednesday.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday on Twitter the state is expecting another 393,000 doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine next week.
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