San Francisco Opens High-Volume Vaccination Site at Moscone Center

San Francisco’s latest high-volume vaccination site opened Friday morning at Moscone Center.

Maria Ansari, a San Francisco-based physician in chief at Kaiser Permanente, which is partnering with the city on the site, says 1,440 vaccines will be administered on Friday, ramping up to 4,000 per day next week. The doses will be “paced with supply," she said.

Ansari says the operation is moving swiftly and “like clockwork.”

“I traced one patient, and she came in and out in 22 minutes,” she said. “For day one, I think that's pretty good; there's a 15-minute observation within that 22-minute period.”

San Francisco's Billy Lane, 67, says it took "exactly 12 minutes from when I went through the front door till I got my shot."

He’s a former transit bus driver who lives in San Francisco’s Outer Richmond neighborhood. His wife was a nurse with Kaiser for 46 years.

Vaccines are administered by appointment and currently only people over the age of 65 and health care workers are eligible.

The city is still struggling with limited supply but hopes to eventually administer 10,000 shots per day at the site.

While opening day at Moscone may have gone smoothly, vaccines are still in short supply across the state.

If San Francisco doesn’t receive another shipment of doses by next Friday, Ansari says, the city will run out.

The state’s rollout has also been hampered by confusing messaging about who is eligible to receive their shot.

Norberto Agustin, 62, was driving for Lyft in San Francisco Friday. He was supposed to receive the vaccine this morning in San Mateo County, where he lives, having scheduled an appointment through the county’s portal three days ago.

But the appointment was canceled at the last minute. “It says that I'm below the age of vaccination,” Agustin said. “I'm only 62 years old.”

He says he doesn’t understand why the county scheduled his appointment only to cancel it. “I'm frustrated, because in the first place they confirmed my appointment,” he said. “But I understand, I'm not in the age bracket.”

Agustin wears two masks and a face shield when he’s driving for Lyft. He wants to get a shot as soon as possible.

He says most of his riders are nurses, doctors, grocery store clerks — all folks with high exposure.

—Kevin Stark