Bay Area's 1st doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered to San Francisco frontline healthcare workers

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Doses of the coronavirus Pfizer vaccine are here in the Bay Area. San Francisco General started administering them to their most at-risk workers Tuesday morning.

"This really is excellent news but we have to taper this with the realization that we are in a really, really bad spot right now," says Dr. Christopher Colwell who is Chief of Emergency Medicine at SF General Hospital.

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The surge of COVID-19 cases that we've seen across the country and the state is also being seen in San Francisco, where 148 people are in the hospital, suffering from the virus. 37 of them are in intensive care units.

"We have more San Franciscans suffering today from COVID-19 than we ever had before," San Francisco Director of Public Health Dr. Grant Colfax said on Monday.

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2,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine arrived at San Francisco General Hospital Monday. The first tier of frontline workers will start receiving doses on Tuesday.

Dr. Colwell tells us he will be receiving a dose of the vaccine on Wednesday, and says that those reading and watching this should understand the importance of getting this vaccine.

"I do honestly believe and really want to emphasize that the risk of the vaccine is lower than the risk of the virus from everything we have and all the information we have so far," says Dr. Colwell.

He went on to say that while many people do recover from coronavirus, many do not, and that's why this vaccine is so important.

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