importance of how much more work we have to do to get to a better place. now i want to talk a little bit about the vaccine. we in the city have developed a capacity to ramp up to up to 10,000 doses a day. now, of course, we want to do more than 10,000 doses a day if we have the vaccine. this past friday, i was at city college, where they first started to administer the doses there and they've been able to administer over 1,600 doses so far and that site alone has the capacity to deliver up to 3,000 doses per day. we also have a site that we're opening up at musconi and in community where there's large sites in partnership with our private health care providers so that we can get to people sooner rather than later. our goal is to also to make sure that we're doing pop-up sites in neighborhoods and communities

that have been most impacted by the virus. we want to meet people where they are. we want them to feel comfortable when they get the vaccine. so as soon as we get the number of doses that we need to start to administer, we will do just that. i will say that there's been a lot of misinformation, there's been a lot of criticism that has surfaced over the course of the rollout of delivering the vaccine to people. and i just want to take a moment to talk a little bit about what we've been doing here in san francisco. in fact, when we first found out about what we would need to administer the vaccine, including the freezers and all of the other technical stuff, we learned that information back in august. and we instantly prepared for that because we knew that in a place like san francisco, with the number of people that we have both living and working here, that we would need to make sure that we had the capacity so

that when the vaccine was delivered to us that we had the refrigeration necessary to basically to keep those vaccines ready to go for people before they were distributed. the work that went into the infrastructure, working with our private health care providers, and just understanding what needed to be done in terms of traffic coordination, in terms of distribution, in terms of checking information, it is a process. in fact, when i was at the site at city college this past friday, one of the conversations that i had with a doctor is that these vaccines, they have to stay refrigerated at least until the hour before they're actually used. so just imagine the coordination that goes into that alone. this is a complicated process. and i want to be clear -- that had we waited to start more recently, like some people had said that we did, we wouldn't be where we are now -- opening up

large sites. opening up and setting up pop-up sites and distributing the vaccine at some of our community clinics where many of our elderly live and are able to walk to. we wouldn't be in this position had we waited to start. we started last year in the summer as information came, and we adjusted. and we stepped up to the challenge to meet the need. in fact, the department of public health specifically based on the number of vaccines that we have received, we've already have distributed over two-thirds of those vaccines to individuals and the remaining batch that we have are mostly for people for their second dose and are scheduled to be given to others for their first. those vaccines are coming in the door and they're going out the door as quickly as we can make that possible. so i want to be clear that it is complicated, it is challenging. but this same department of public health is the department

of public health that had advised me as the mayor in the beginning of this pandemic that we had to shut this city down so that we could save lives. it's the same department of public health that led the efforts during the aids crisis where san francisco was left on its own. it's the same department of public health that i am working with to roll out the vaccine distribution. because not only do they know and understand the importance of what this means to save lives in san francisco, i understand the importance of what this means to save the lives in san francisco, to get our city reopened, and to get our economy going again. nothing is more important. i trust and support and work closely with the department of public health to make the hard decisions to get this vaccine out to the public as quickly as possible. so i want you to understand that

we are in a better place, we are not where i want us to be, because we don't have sufficient supply of vaccines to distribute to the public. but i will guarantee you that as soon as we get them, they will be out on the streets in someone's arm so that we can get things rolling again. and i appreciate the patience and the understanding of so many san franciscans as we go through this process. keep in mind san francisco has done an amazing job through this pandemic. i know that we're tired of being indoors. i know that we're tired of the schools being closed and not being able to connect with our friends and family. i'm tired of this too. i understand how important it is to get back to our lives. i understand that more than anyone, because i feel the responsibility, the weight of this entire city, and every single resident. i feel that on my shoulders every single day.

but i'm asking for more patience and understanding and trust that we will continue to do everything that we can to get these vaccines out the door. in fact, tomorrow i'll be having a conversation at 1:15 online with dr. susan philip and dr. naveena baba, who are two incredible women who have helped to lead this effort from the beginning so that we can ask questions about some of the concerns that i've been seeing from people who are wondering, well, why is this happening and that's not happening. why is this going on and that not going on. well, tomorrow your questions about the vaccine will be answered. and i hope that it will instill just really an understanding and also a clear guide for what we are doing here in san francisco and what we need to continue to do to get the vaccines out as

quickly as possible. and i am excited today. i'm excited today because the vaccine rollout -- i'm excited today because many of our small businesses will begin to open. i'm excited because i know that people in san francisco, although this is a great day, they realize the importance of still following safety guidelines around covid and understanding that the virus is still out there and that we still have more work to do. but today still is a day of celebration. and i'm, again, grateful for all of you for everything that you've done to get us to this point. now, the last thing they want to touch upon is we have a new president. i love saying that -- we have a new president, we have a new vice president. and one of the first announcements that the president made last week is the fact that our shelter-in-place hotels that have been provided to many of

our homeless people who are a part of this vulnerable population, that they would not only just reimburse the 75% that they agreed to reimburse at the beginning of this pandemic, but this president has committed fema to reimbursing us at 100%. what that does for our budget is incredible. we're still facing a significant deficit, we still have a lot of financial challenges, but what this means is that we have a level of certainty. no, this is not going to be forever, but it will be long enough that as we start to transition some of the people that we have in hotels in san francisco into permanent housing situations we can now backfill those hotel rooms with people who fit the guidelines under the fema requirements for reimbursement. that is really great news. and i'm excited to continue to work towards trying to get our

most vulnerable off the streets. but i want to be clear about something. if you were not on our list to receive support and care in our homeless system as of april last year, and you basically came to san francisco thinking that there's an opportunity for you to get help in some capacity, unfortunately, we will not be able to help you. and the people that we'll be able to serve are people who were part of our system of care before april of 2020. they're already on the list, they're already waiting. they're sleeping outside. they're sleeping in tents. and we are not going to jump the line for someone who just decided to come to san francisco yesterday. there are people who are waiting and they will be prioritized and they are the only people that we can help at this time. so i want to make that clear that that is what is going to happen moving forward, with the

good news of receiving reimbursement 100% from fema. so i want to thank each and every one of you again. today is a good day. today is not a day to go outside and to throw up your mask in the air and to celebrate in that way. you can go out and celebrate and throw your hands in the air and just keep your mask on. make sure that you're continuing to comply with this health order and doing everything that you can. when you go to restaurants, just be mindful. when you visit friends or family, just follow the health orders. we're not out of this partner p, but we're better today than we have been in a very long time. it gives me hope that we are finally getting to a better place -- the place that we continue to talk about. the place where we say that we're the light at the end of the tunnel. well, we're seeing a crack of that light come through bright. and that's because of your work and your efforts and everything that you've done. so, thank you.

and the better our numbers get, the more we will be able to open, the more that we will be able to get back to a place where we can see one another in person again. thank you again. and now i'm happy to open it up to questions. >> thank you, mayor breed, for your remarks. before we begin, the question and the answer portion, we're going to take a moment to allow reporters to submit any final questions they may have on webex. thank you, mayor breed. at this time we'll start with dr. colfax. >> mayor london breed: okay. thank you again.

dr. colfax, i'll let you do the white gown. >> good afternoon. >> thank you for your patience. dr. colfax, your first question comes from various media outlets. why are people from out of the

county getting vaccinated at city college? >> thank you so much for the question. i think that city college has been a great partnership with ucsff, and if we had enough vaccine we could get you 3,000 vaccines there a day easily right now. but i think that key issues to understand right now is that for the vaccine, the focus has been eligibility for vaccine has been for health care providers and for people 65 and over. many health care providers work in san francisco, but outside of san francisco. so many of the health care providers will be vaccinated here because it's a place of work. similarly, people who are 65 and over who are eligible for the vaccine, they may live in oakland but they may have their health care provider here in san francisco. so they would be getting vaccinated here. vice versa, if you live in san francisco but you have a health care provider in oakland, you could go to oakland to get vaccinated. the issue is that the bay area

is porous and we're all interconnected and we need to get vaccines into arms as quickly as possible. >> thank you, dr. colfax. your next question comes from various media outlets. why are we reopening with new virus variants circulating? how will the city deal with new variants and avoid shutdowns? >> so we are opening at a high level of case diagnosis. we're at about 30 per 100,000 right now, which as the mayor mentioned, is substantially lower than we were just a few weeks ago. so this is very good news. we know that the rate of the virus spread in the city is slowing right now, which is also good news. we will continue to monitor the rate of spread and hopefully that will continue to go down. with regard to the variants, we are concerned about that. but there's no reason to panic. we know that wearing masks, social distancing, and using the

good hygiene practices, we believe that it's also effective with regard to reducing the variant's spread. so right now, even with this relatively high rate of cases, because things are moving in the right direction, because our hospital capacity -- even through this third surge -- remained relatively good in san francisco, compared to other jurisdictions, and the fact that san franciscans had now beaten back three surges -- look, we have been in this for nearly a year right now. it's time for to us take this approach of gradually reopening and we're reopening, and let's see where we are and do the right thing so that we could even get to that next step and open up more. >> thank you, dr. colfax. your next question comes from heather knight, san francisco "chronicle." how many vaccine doses has san francisco received and how many has it given to people?

>> so right now, heather, we have received as a city 127,000 vaccines. that's across the whole city. that's across the health care systems, across the city. and we've administered as a city, we estimate just over 59,000 vaccines have been administered. at the health department, we've received 34,500 vaccines to date. and we've vaccinated more than 23,000 people. now in those numbers i want to stress a couple of things -- we are ready to go with mass vaccine sites right now. we need to get to 10,000 vaccines a day. the numbers that i gave you alst with regard to the vaccine that is remaining that those vaccines have been scheduled for second doses or appointments that have been made for first doses for most part. and with the d.p.h. supply, even

with the 10,000, our total that we'll get this week, we will be scheduled to basically to exhaust our vaccine supply by as early as wednesday or thursday. we need more vaccine right now so that we can get those shots into arms. >> thank you, dr. colfax. the next set of questions come from alex fererria, san francisco business times. in what ways will the restrictions in place in san francisco be on thursday differ from what the state is allowing in the purple tier counties? or, is the county reopening to the full extent of the purple tier? >> so just to be clear right nod that the counties are coming out as the shelter-in-place order, we will be told what tier we're in tomorrow. we'll look at that very carefully. and with regard to the orders, those will be -- be released

accordingly. and that those will be released on thursday at this time. >> thank you, dr. colfax. your next question comes from holly striker of kqed. what amount is the expected next shipment of vaccine in san francisco? >> so, remember, we have visibility only to the vaccine that the health department will be getting because the other health care systems in the county, the kaiser and the sutter and the dignity, they get pulled from their regional counterparts what vaccine they'll be getting. what i can tell you right now because this is what we have insay the into -- is that the health department is scheduled to get 10,575 doses this week. that number could change. and we will know that number when they tell us that that number has actually been shipped to us. but, again, that's ready to go out the door right now.

we need more vaccine. >> thank you, dr. colfax. the next question comes from eve batty theatre s.f. can we hear more about the thinking behind the decision to leave the 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. stay-at-home order in place? >> so, what we're doing right now is working to gradually to reopen the city. we're taking the initial steps in a situation where the rate of the virus is still relatively high. we want to see that number continue to go down before we release that 10:00 to 5:00 order. so let's just give us a little more time and see how those numbers do to ensure that we don't have to reverse again. nobody wants to go backwards again, so let's take the first step. we have beaten back three surges. let's prevent a fourth surge as much as possible.

>> thank you. the next question comes from christian kaftan, channel 2 news. how will this work county-by-county, when the entire bay area was covered under the state's previous order? could there be surges in other counties that could impact san francisco? >> well, i think that has been really great about the local county collaboration -- actually, a year now -- is that the bay area health officers have been coordinating and working together. and for the most part the region has been well coordinated. so, again, we will see what tier the counties are assigned to by the state tomorrow. and i expect that in general that the county orders will be aligned for the most part. >> thank you, dr. colfax. your next set of questions come from dan curman.

who is getting vaccinated at city college? those in the san francisco health network? those in the ucsff health network? or anyone over 65? >> so people who are eligible for vaccine right now are health care workers and people over the age of 65. right now that site -- those patients -- are ucsff patients who by the most case meet the 65 and over criteria, and, again, once we get more vaccine we're ready to go and give up to 3,000 vaccines at that site alone. >> and a poll question, do you feel as if the feds are sending less vaccine to the bay area region compared to southern california due to the massive outbreak there? >> i'm not going to speculate on what the feds may or may not be doing. i think that the bottom line is that across the state regionally

and locally we need more vaccine as soon as possible. san francisco is ready for the vaccine. our goal is to be able to inoculate at least 10,000 people a day. as you just heard, the health department is getting just over 10,000 doses this week. so we need to get that vaccine here so that we can get it into arms as quickly as possible. >> thank you, dr. colfax. and we will now continue questions with mayor breed. >> mayor london breed: all

right. >> mayor breed, your first set of question comes from nbc bay area. what do you say to landlords who feel that they're being taken advantage of by tenants who continue to pay zero dollars in rent and intend to continue living rent-free during the eviction moratorium? >> mayor london breed: well, i appreciate the question. and, you know, san francisco since the beginning of this pandemic, through not only the rental subsidies that we had through the city and county of san francisco, that try to provide some additional rental assistance to make sure that when this is over that people are still responsible for that rent and will need to pay it. we just found out from the federal government that san francisco will be given $26 million in stimulus money to help with rental assistance. this will be significant. we know that it's not just the people who are struggling to pay their rent, but some of the

small property owners and others who might be struggling because they're not receiving that additional income. there is hope with this new $26 million and i'm excited to see what that does to help to address some of the challenges that exist. because what we don't want to happen is that we don't want -- after this pandemic is over, we don't want to see a lot of people getting evicted and we also don't want to see a situation where so many small property owners who rely on this income to help to cover the expenses of maybe their in-home support services work, or the repairs on their home, we don't want to see them in a bad situation either. so right now, great announcement, $26 million in rental subsidies. that's a start. we know that there's more to do. but i think that we're going to continue to work towards the goal of trying to make people as whole as we possibly can. >> thank you. and a follow-up question, should the future stimulus checks include a requirement that a

portion of those funds go towards a person's rent? how can smaller landlords afford to keep allowing renters to live for free? >> mayor london breed: i think that something of that nature might be somewhat difficult to manage. i know that, for example, we have the ability through the resources that we provide for rent subsidy to make direct payments which ensures that these resource goes directly to cover the rent. on a federal level, i have no control over that, but i do think that it's important for us to do everything that we can to make sure that we get direct payments into the hands of landlords, to make sure that we avoid the evictions that could occur if these rents are not paid. >> thank you, mayor breed. your next question comes from ron lynn of the "los angeles times." some restaurant owners have been very upset at the outdoor dining ban and have opposed the government orders to shut them down. do you think that san francisco's latest success

vindicates your efforts to impose an outdoor dining ban and to implement stay-at-home orders, even ahead of the state's timeline? >> mayor london breed: well, i truly believe -- yes. if -- you've gotta understand that to close down a major city like san francisco, and then also when you see the numbers surging and to have to go backwards, those are some of the hardest decisions i've ever had to make, because i know what it means -- not just for the people who are supporting these restaurants -- i know what it means for the workers and the food and all of the things that these restaurants have to do to be open in the first place. but the fact is that we had to prioritize saving lives in every decision that we made. and what we're seeing are the impacts of those decisions because our case rates, the deaths that have -- are the lowest death rates in the country of any major city in san francisco, the i.c.u. rates, i think that all of the numbers

that we're seeing in san francisco demonstrate that we made the right decision and now that we are reopening outdoor dining, we want to continue to make sure that we are being very careful. because we don't want to go backwards. >> thank you, mayor breed. your final question comes from kathleen novak of kcbs. with the extra funding from the federal government, will san francisco be able to open up more hotel rooms to people who might not qualify for fema reimbursement and cover the costs out of the city's budget? >> mayor london breed: well, we are not certain that that's going to be possible because our goal is to provide permanent housing, not temporary housing. and what these hotels and these safe sleeps sites that we opened up during this pandemic have done is provided temporary shelter for the people who, unfortunately, are homeless. and we're being reimbursed for that purpose. but our resources, the money

that we have in available to assist with our homeless population need to be used for permanent housing options. and that's where our priority will be. >> thank you, mayor breed. there are no additional questions. >> mayor london breed: thank you. >> this concludes today's press conference. thank you, mayor breed and dr. colfax for your time. (♪♪♪)