As U.K. gives first coronavirus vaccine shots, Bay Area poised to follow as soon as next week - San Francisco Chronicle

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As Britain became the first Western country to give coronavirus vaccine injections to the public on Tuesday, Bay Area hospitals and health departments readied plans to administer the shots to the highest-priority health care workers and first responders here in as little as a week.

It will mark the beginning of a months-long vaccine distribution process throughout California that will start as a trickle and gradually swell between now and next summer, as more vaccines are authorized, manufactured and shipped to states and counties. In the United Kingdom, regulators authorized the Pfizer vaccine last week, and the first dose given to someone outside of a clinical trial was administered to a 90-year-old woman, followed by thousands more Britons.

“It’s going to be more of a marathon than a sprint,” said Dr. Art Reingold, a UC Berkeley epidemiologist and chair of the California vaccine group that will review the safety and efficacy of vaccines that get Food and Drug Administration authorization.

The FDA on Tuesday shared data on the vaccine made by Pfizer and German firm BioNTech, confirming previously released clinical trial results by the companies demonstrating the vaccine’s 95% efficacy rate. The Pfizer vaccine is widely expected to be the first one authorized by U.S. regulators, and the additional information provided by the FDA on Tuesday sets the stage for the agency to grant authorization potentially in the next few days. Two key federal committees at the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are scheduled to meet Thursday and Friday, respectively, to review Pfizer’s vaccine application. The FDA could authorize it as soon as Thursday.

“My understanding is the information released today is encouraging and supportive of the notion that the Pfizer vaccine is safe and efficacious, so I expect to see more detailed information in the next few days,” Reingold said. “I haven’t seen anything that has given me pause.”

Bay Area health departments and health care providers are anticipating receiving the first shipments of the Pfizer vaccine in about one week.

California is scheduled to get 327,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in mid-December, Gov. Gavin Newsom has said. The state last week announced the vaccines will go first to health care workers at acute care, psychiatric and correctional facility hospitals; residents and workers of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities; paramedics and emergency medical services personnel; and dialysis center workers. This group, known as Phase 1a of the vaccine rollout, includes most of the 2.4 million health care workers in California. The state is planning around the assumption it will get 2.1 million first doses of the Pfizer vaccine in December, Newsom said Monday.

Most Americans probably won’t be able to get vaccinated until spring or summer.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health will receive about 12,000 doses in the first allocation of Pfizer vaccines as soon as Dec. 15, the department said Tuesday.

The department “is currently meeting with internal and external stakeholders to determine which facilities will receive the first allocation,” the agency said in a statement. “Individual facilities will then determine, based on California Department of Public Health guidance, which staff members will receive the vaccine.”

UCSF expects to receive 975 doses in the first round of vaccine allocation, and is preparing to vaccinate health care workers and first responders at its Parnassus and Mission Bay campuses, UCSF spokeswoman Kristen Bole said in an email. The doses will go to 975 people as their first of two doses; the Pfizer vaccine is administered in two injections, 21 days apart.

UCSF has two ultra-cold freezers that will store the Pfizer vaccines, which must be kept at negative 94 degrees Fahrenheit because they contain fragile genetic material. Each freezer can store between 300,000 and 600,000 doses of the vaccine, and UCSF will have additional freezers in the future as more vaccines arrive.

“The other primary logistics we’re working on is identifying who should be among the first 975 people and notifying them who they are and what the process will be to provide their vaccines,” Bole said.

The vaccines will likely go first to employees with the most direct contact with COVID-19 patients, including urgent care and emergency department doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists, radiology technicians, phlebotomists and emergency medical services transporters, UCSF officials said last week. UC police officers and hospital housekeeping staff, who are not health care workers but who are at risk for coming into contact with people infected with the virus, will also be included in this first group.

Santa Clara County, the Bay Area’s most populous county and the one at highest risk of running out of ICU beds — with just 12% available as of Tuesday — expects to receive 17,500 doses of the Pfizer vaccine around Dec. 15, Dr. Marty Fenstersheib of the county’s Department of Public Health said in a news briefing Monday.

The doses will go first to acute care hospital workers, and then to residents of long-term care facilities, he said.

“We certainly will not get enough vaccines for both of those large groups, but this is the first allocations and we expect subsequent allocations over the next several weeks,” Fenstersheib said. “The hospitals are preparing, and have prepared to receive the vaccines. The Pfizer vaccine requires very low (temperature) storage and special freezers, so hospitals are preparing for that. The county and health department has purchased those freezers so we’ll also be prepared.”

The county declined to say which hospitals would be receiving the first vaccines.

A state-assembled vaccine advisory committee is scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss who within the Phase 1a group should be prioritized if there are not enough doses at first for all who want them. The committee will also discuss who will be next in line, in Phase 1b, to receive coronavirus vaccines after health care workers and nursing home residents. This group will likely be essential workers, including those who work in agriculture, transportation, energy, education and other critical infrastructure.

“We see the glimmers of a light at the end of the tunnel and the hope of protecting our communities, not just with these actions but that additional tool of a vaccine in the weeks and months to come,” California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said.

Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho

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