California state Sen. Scott Wiener sounded off on the federal government’s failure to procure an adequate supply of monkeypox vaccine and warned that San Francisco is heading toward a “public health mess of uncontrolled monkeypox spread.”
In a statement on Wednesday, the progressive Democrat said the San Francisco Department of Public Health is running critically low and the San Francisco General Hospital vaccine clinic is being temporarily suspended.
This comes as monkeypox infections are on the rise in the city, jumping from six cases as of June 16 to a total of 80 cases as of July 14.
“Due to a lack of vaccine supply—and what will continue to be a sluggish pace of vaccination due to limited supply going forward—we are veering toward a public health mess of uncontrolled monkeypox spread in our community and many other communities,” he said in a statement. “Failure to control this outbreak will result in intense—and completely unnecessary—misery for many people, particularly gay and bisexual men.”
Wiener, who is gay, placed the blame squarely on the federal government.
“We need an enormous amount of additional vaccine doses, and we need it immediately. The federal government’s failures are threatening to deeply harm our community,” Wiener added. “Once we move past this emergency, we need accountability for these failures — failures that put people’s lives and health in jeopardy.”
SF is running out of monkeypox vaccine & SF General vaccine clinic will temporarily close after today.
— Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) July 13, 2022
While SF will receive additional doses, these stops & starts are unsustainable & will lead to uncontrolled spread.
The federal government caused this shortage. My statement: pic.twitter.com/L94GjvjMUe