As respiratory illnesses begin to circulate this winter season, far fewer San Franciscans have rolled up their sleeves to get the latest Covid-19 shot than in previous years, according to health department estimates.
The Department of Public Health estimates that just 22.5 percent of San Franciscans are up to date on their covid vaccine this year, compared to 70 percent for the initial vaccine series in 2021.
As the fourth holiday season marked by the pandemic approaches, most are expected to travel and celebrate with loved ones as usual. And health experts encourage that, especially with the necessary precautions.
For her part, Dr. Carina Marquez, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said she will visit her pregnant sister and parents — but only after she ensures everyone is up to date on vaccines.
“Getting vaccinated now will boost your immunity, and decrease the risk that you are sick for the holidays, and reduce the risk that holiday gatherings are superspreader events,” Marquez said, and “they, of course, will boost your protection for severe disease.”
It’s not just covid: Rates of the flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, are starting to increase, according to doctors and community-testing sites. Collectively known as the “Big Three,” these respiratory illnesses pose a danger to all San Franciscans, but particularly children, the elderly and people of color.
“Respiratory viruses, including COVID, are circulating and continuing to disproportionately affect our community,” said Marquez. “Risk increases during holidays with more large gatherings.”
Last year, Unidos en Salud, a collaboration between the Latino Task Force and UCSF, championed a “triple vax” campaign to protect individuals from all three viruses. Again, they advise the same.
Still, covid continues to infect San Franciscans this winter.
While lower demand for testing has likely affected data, the latest available data from the San Francisco Department of Public Health show a 7.1 percent covid positivity rate from Oct. 9 to Nov. 28. In that time period, roughly 28 people were hospitalized by covid, according to the health department.
The Mission District’s Unidos en Salud site at Capp and 24th streets reported a 24-percent covid positivity rate last weekend, Marquez said. Most of the residents are uninsured and Latinx, though the data may be too scant to tell if there are significant racial inequities.
Over at the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub, where Unidos test samples are sequenced, Karina Perlaza confirms that covid has been making up roughly 30-40 samples a month. The BioHub expects to sequence more samples in the winter months, and Perlaza is tracking whether the latest BA.2.86 variant has come to the Mission. Right now, the variant is accounting for about 10 percent of cases nationally.
In certain parts of the world, “it’s taken over,” Perlaza said. “It becomes the dominant variant really quickly.”
For this reason, “it’s important people are vigilant, and people are testing and not assuming it’s just a cold,” said Susana Rojas, a Unidos leader and head of the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District. “The last thing we want is another surge.”
Those seeking the flu vaccine, the monkeypox vaccine or the covid vaccine — which is now recommended annually — can go to the Unidos en Salud site at 24th and Capp streets on Fridays and Saturdays. Paxlovid, a treatment prescribed for covid infection, can be accessed at Unidos, too.
Demand has been stronger at Unidos, which has injected some 2,000 updated vaccines since offering the new vaccinations in October, and had to turn away some 700 requests during the first few weekends because they did not have enough supply. Marquez credits the demand to Unidos’s reputation: “People continue to come to our site because of trust, language concordance, and convenience.”
But demand is now dwindling, and turning people away is no longer the case, said former HIV nurse Diane Jones. “We now have more supply than demand,” Jones said.
This is what happens when everyone goes from “fighting a winning fight against the pandemic” to “just pretend the pandemic is over as it claims more than 30m lives, not counting the hundreds of thousands more with Long COVID”.
Even with that greed-induced strategy of pretending the pandemic is over (it’s not), there’s also the fact that vaccines, testing, and masks are harder to find than they used to be and the vaccines have gone from being free to super-expensive to get at Costco (which – along with CVS, Walgreens, etc. – gets them before small/indie/PoC-/women-owned clinics like Mission Wellness). That’s a top-down failure during a crisis that’s now four-years-and-counting.
#MaskUp 😷 #SocialDistance ↔️ #GetVaxxed 💉 #GetBoosted 💉
Got mine! Zero side effects.
Recommended.