Low Vaccination Rates In Parts Of Bayview Could Be Driving High COVID-19 Infections (SF Public Press)

San Francisco CA

19 September, 2021

7:01 PM

Description

By Noah Arroyo, Mission Local September 19, 2021 Low vaccination rates in several pockets of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood could help explain persistently high cases of COVID-19 in San Francisco's southeast, recently released data indicates. Neighborhood-level numbers show the Bayview's overall vaccination rate of 88% is on par with the most vaccinated areas in the city. But the data released this week shows a large disparity in the percentage of vaccinated residents among different census tracts, revealing where most of the Bayview's thousands of unvaccinated residents are probably located. Local organizations have been requesting the information, which is publicly available in at least one other Bay Area county, for months to better target their vaccination outreach. After releasing the data to the Public Press last week, officials shared an updated version with Bayview community groups Tuesday. "Particularly of concern, is that we need to advocate very hard at increasing testing in those places with extremely low vaccination rates, because we want to help community protect itself," said Michelle Pierce, executive director of the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates. "This really allows us to concentrate in those areas." In a written statement, the Department of Public Health said it has been sharing this information with local groups since May. "SFDPH works with a wider group of community partners, many of which may not attend the weekly coordination meetings and may not necessarily have seen the data presentations shared at those convenings," the statement read. Prior to Tuesday's meeting, Dr. Kim Rhoads, associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, also said she had not seen census-tract-level vaccination data for San Francisco and to her knowledge, neither had the groups attending the weekly meetings. Rhoads has been attending them since early August, she said. READ MORE at SF Public Press Mission Local covers San Francisco from the vantage point of the Mission, a neighborhood with all of the promise and problems of a major city. You can support Mission Local here.