ZSFGH opens walk-up vaccinations for eligible residents of three zip codes

The city has opened a seven day a week, walk-up vaccination clinic for eligible residents at Zuckerberg San Francisco General’s Learning Center. 

To get a vaccine there, residents must live in the 94110, 94112 or 94107 zip codes, be 65 or older, and be on Medi-Cal, Healthy San Francisco, or uninsured. The clinic is also vaccinating healthcare workers, and many in line Friday morning were under 65 and had their identification as In-Home Supportive Service providers.

There are no online appointments at present as the clinic is meant to address the challenges that some seniors have had in booking online appointments.

“It’s important to us that vaccine sites are low barrier, especially to those that have been most impacted,” said Cristina Padilla, a spokesperson for the hospital. “We’ve found that many people who aren’t regular users of digital technology, like this 65+ population, prefer the low barrier access of drop-ins, without having to go through a webform for an appointment.”  

The site, which had a soft launch earlier in the week,  is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Supply is limited, so it is possible people will be asked to come back another day for the vaccine.

Wan Kun Zheng, who was in line Friday morning, said that she takes care of an elderly woman. She said she was “a little bit afraid,” because the disease is “no good.” She wears a mask while she works.

Philippa Doyle, a nurse on-site, said that the word is getting around and when the line at Building 30 gets too long, they can send people to Carr Auditorium, which is on the ZSFGH campus.

“Everything has been good today,” she said. “At least it’s not raining.”

Doyle said that, up until recently, ZSFGH had been vaccinating its staff. Only 3 to 5 percent of the hospital’s staff declined the vaccine, according to Brent Andrews, a spokesperson.

The site is the second in the Mission District. The first launched Monday morning and has attracted long lines of elderly residents waiting to get an appointment. In addition to the Capp Street site, the ZSFGH site and one in Bayview Hunter’s Point at the South East Health Clinic, the city and private insurers also opened a large site today at the Moscone Center.

Already, DPH and private insurers have been giving vaccinations at City College. The two large sites are open for online appointments that can be booked here. The City College site is drive-through. The city has also partnered with Safeway to open a site at SF State University.

Online appointments for Moscone, City College and SF State are available here. You do not need insurance to book an appointment.

At the smaller, walk-up sites, the Department of Public Health is trying to target more vulnerable communities, and after interviewing people in line at the Mission site, it is clear that at least some seniors are finding the walk-up sites easier to manage. The wait may be long, but there are appointments or vaccines at the end.

Teresa Guardado, 75, said in Spanish that she was told she could get a vaccination today. “Older people get the privilege to get the vaccine. I do not have an appointment,” she said. 

Lorenzo Liaanag, who lives on Folsom Street, said she is almost 68 and had been trying, but failing, to get an appointment. “I found out this one doesn’t need an appointment,” she said. “I have to do it.” 

Andrew, from DPH, said that one of the challenges in distributing the vaccines “is to figure out where an average person needs to go.”

“Despite limited vaccine supply, it is critical that older adults living in neighborhoods most impacted by the pandemic have early access to COVID-19 vaccinations to lower both the infection and death rates among a population disproportionately impacted by the virus,” Padilla, the spokesman for Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, wrote in an email.

Some 400 to 500 vaccinations a day will be given at ZSFGH’s Learning Center, located on the second floor of Building 30. It is best to enter by walking in from 23rd Street, Padilla wrote.

The city is also offering vaccines to the Bayview Hunters Point community at the Southeast Health Center clinic at 2401 Keith St.  Between the ZSFGH site and the Southeast clinic, DPH is giving as many as 800 vaccinations a day, according to Doyle.

The site on Capp Street run by UCSF and the Latino Task Force has the capacity to give 240 vaccinations a day, but has only had supplies of about 130 this week. The collaboration — known as Unidos en Salud — operates Sundays through Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. It is also running a Covid-19 rapid testing site at the 24th Street BART Plaza on the same schedule as the vaccination site.