very dear friend of his. that friend was 52 years old and he said, "london, this man spent 26 years in jail. he's been shot. he's been beat up. he came out. he turned his life around and after everything he went through, he caught covid. he wasn't vaccinated and within less than a month's time he was dead." we have another member of our community that's joining us here today. ms. cassie cook who lost her son who was in his early 50s and was not vaccinated. and i understand the concerns that a lot of people have around vaccinations specifically in the african american community. we know the history of the alabama shear croppers through the tuskeegee experiments. when those people were provided the opportunity to get the cure which at the time in 1977 which was penicillin, they were denied. they went on to infect their wives and others and, in fact, decades later, the government finally acknowledged the crime it committed against those african american sharecroppers. and many some of you know my grandmother who raised me in this community, her family were sharecroppers. were well aware we didn't have the devices and internet we had word of mouth where we were acutely aware of all that was going on in the injustices inflicted upon african americans at that time. that is part of the reason i know why we are not seeing as many african americans in this city vaccinated as it should be. and the reason why i am becoming increasingly concerned, we as san francisco as a whole is doing great. we have 79% of those over the age of 12 that are fully vaccinated. we are seeing people, actually, the numbers are increasing about 203 new cases a day. 117 people right now in the hospital and an uptick in the number of african americans who are not only contracting covid, but who are dying from covid. disproportionately to a very small population of black people in this city and that should not be. this delta variant is covid on steroids in a whole other way. and the vaccine could be the difference between having the sniffles, being at home sick a couple of days and not being able to breathe and suffocating, being on a ventilator and dying. so, yes, this is a matter of life or death and other people continue to bring up. i understand the concern and the hesitancy. i had to dig deep before i even committed to get the vaccine. i had to understand it because if i was going to be asking other people to do it, i had to do it myself. and i had to feel confident about why i was doing it. now more than ever, it is so important. you know, when ms. cook told me that the last time she saw her son, she couldn't even hug him. and she lost him. i can't even imagine how she's feeling right now and i'm grateful to god she's standing strong here today. she's here to tell her story so you all can understand the importance. we've had so many challenging experiences in the black community and this city. challenging experience around violence, around poverty. and sadly now around covid. so when we come out of this pandemic eventually, i don't know when, i can't give a guaranteed date, when we come out of this pandemic, i don't want to be mourning the people lost because of this disease. so, yes, we have a lot of work today and for those who are hesitant and want to ask questions, concerns want to get the vaccine, may not, who knows, but we want to be here. we want to be here to make sure people know it's possible if you want it and we want to encourage folks to get it because i'm tired of wearing masks. i'm tired of imposing all these public health guidelines. they're not meant to be a punishment. just remember, kids under the age of 12 cannot be vaccinated. they have not been approved for the vaccination. so when we have one case at a school, we may have to shut the whole school down and kids are back home suffering from mental health challenges because they're not able to be in school in the classroom with other students. so, today, i'm reaching out to folks to do their part to get vaccinated. it's a simple message. and, with that, i want to introduce dr. grant colfax to talk a little bit more about specifically what's happening in san francisco and some of the data and then if ms. cook is up to it, i want her to come up here and say a few words because when we talked over the phone, she said she wants to make sure that she does everything she can to reach out to people to make sure they're vaccinated so this doesn't happen to someone else. so, with that, i want to introduce dr. grant col fax. >> thank you, mayor. and good morning everybody. thank you, mayor for your outstanding leadership during this pandemic and i just also want to acknowledge the leaders behind me today with regard to ensuring that we do everything we can to get vaccinated. i want to thank reverend brown. i want to thank ms. cook for coming out today. we are in san francisco at almost 80% of people eligible being fully vaccinated. that is outstanding. we still have work to do. we still have work to do particularly among black african americans where our rate of vaccination is 64%. that's why we are here today, that's why we are here providing vaccine to people in the park. that's why we have our mobile teams out. that's why we have our vax to you program. you can call the number on our website. we will bring the vaccine to your home or any other place. if you have five or more people ready to get vaccinated. there's a lot of conversation about [break] through infections. those are important, but let's stay on the key message here that these vaccines are saving lives every day. here in san francisco, the vast majority of people hospitalized are people who have not been vaccinated. the vast majority of people in this fourth surge that we're seeing who are sadly dying of covid-19, these deaths are overwhelmingly preventable with these vaccines. these vaccines are safe and effective and they are so important for us to get back to a new normal that we all take these vaccines. so just really encouraging people to do that. with regard to our fourth surge here in san francisco. we are currently just under 200 new infections per day. that's down a bit. hospitalizations appear to have stabilize z in terms of that rapid increase. they have stabilize now. we do not know what's going to happen next. the more we are vaccinated, the better we'll be able to take care of people. the more likely our schools will continue to be able to stay open and we'll be able to protect people particularly vulnerable to covid-19 and we'll be better prepared and more ready for whatever this holds next for us. thank you very much. >> thank you, and i just want to thank reverend brown from the n.a.c.p. and other pastors who are joining us here today as well as sherman tillman from the black firefighters for his support and, at this time, i want to introduce reverend shaw from betho ame and floyd tramel from first friendship. i want to introduce cathy cook to come forward and say a few words. >> good afternoon. can you hear me? okay. when i pulled up, i saw whole groups of young men across the street. that's why i'm here. when i look at you, we are preaching to the choir because we know what we need to do. i used to be a deputy executive director and i touched the lives of these young men that you see on the street, but they're gone. i am hurting. i am burrying my son on tuesday i didn't get a chance to say good-bye. i begged him to be vaccinated, he wouldn't do it. so he had to leave my house because i wanted him to be safe. i saw him july 7th and i looked through the gate. i said have you been vaccined? vaccinated? and he just threw his hands up and all i saw was his back. it took them three days to find me. he was in kaiser in oakland. he was dying. he had acute pneumonia and he had all of these bacterias in his body that was eating up every organ he had. and my message that i would like to get out today to the masses, if you're anywhere from 38 to sixty and i have a group of about twelve doctors that took their time with me and they said within the last six to eight months, the group 38 to 60, they come in, they don't make it out. they don't make it out because they have not been vaccinated. they die. my son is dead. my son. i have only one child. i beg you. i beg you. i can't take no more. my son i'm going to bury. you don't know what it feels like. my son is dead. i've got to go. >> reverend brown. say something. >> thank you very much, madam mayor and to dr. colfax. reverend shaw of bethel african american first friendship and other clergy persons who are here. i stand to say, we should applaud our mayor for taking the positive step to make sure that in the city and county of san francisco african americans will not be at the bottom of the barrel of the well when it comes to educating in a positive way. our entire community about the fact that all of us should be tested and vaccinated. ms. cassie cook is also a member of third baptist church and as a pastor and as one representing jesus of nazurus. for that profit came and said that they may have life more abundantly. so we are pleading with and as i did with my own children who are this generation. i gave them some gentle yet direct indication, don't calls me to feel that i need to disown you. because james brown it not bare children who would not understand that you don't look alternate facebook. you don't look at those people who come up with some kind of conspiracy theories. just to divide others to be in charge of something, but you look to scientists, doctors. you look to faith leaders who have gone the kay of the struggle and know what we are talking about. so today, we are just beginning. acp came and this gumbo ban will make some news throughout san francisco and bayview hunter's point to say to our children and to the young adults, come on, baby, god ordaned for you to have life and not to have death before the deadline. too many of us are dying. two and one half percent are dying of this virus in the city and county of san francisco. but true hope treasure of god and christ, we have testing sites, we have vaccination sites and in addition to this site today, i say to all of you standing around here, if you've not been vaccinated come on together t. my mother-in-law is 103 years old and she's kicking and doing well with her whit. my wife is 78 years old and god has enabled me saying to everybody, god loves you and so do i, let's be about life and not death. >> thank you, reverend brown. you know i'm going to tell jane on you for telling all these people her age out here. thank you reverend brown. thank you, cassie cook for your courage and everyone who's joining us here today and, as i said, you know, we don't know how long covid will be with us. but we want to make sure we do our part so we begin to open up everything we need to and finally i'll just say dr. colfax touched on it a little bit the people in the hospital are younger and we've had about 1800 people who were hospitalized and 1600 people were vaccinated. if just shows you that if more people were. so we've got work to do. we're out here. we'll be out here another hour and a half. please come to the philmore mini park between turk and golden gate to get your vaccine today. thank you. any questions from the press? >> reporter: [inaudible] have you seen any uptick in vaccination rates? >> we have seen an uptick in the percentage of people who've been vaccinated and so that's been good. we've also even though we're still seeing a lot more cases than we're comfortable with, we see the average numbers decline. so that's good news, but we're still not in a good place. >> reporter: marginalized communities are most of the time left behind. you have put them in the front of the line. our community members over here [inaudible] >> well, i think as a part of this community, i know that it's important that we do things differently. and how we communicate to the african american community. and so when this pandemic first hit, i didn't know all the answers to every question, but it was important to me that we embed an equity team that could answer those questions as soon as we have the information, the same with what we needed to do around this vaccination site. we started with a free site, no questions asked or everyone ninety-two thousand two hundred forty-four and the one at 2401 keith in the bayview. you can come, you live in those zip codes. no questions asked, no insurance or what have you. so part of it was to make it easy and make sure people were available to help support and really just to encourage people to do it and we're going to keep on doing that. >> reporter: [inaudible] >> i think dr. colfax should talk more about that specifically. >> so i think in response to our questions is how important these vaccines are. they're very key in preventing death from covid-19 and you can look at the data on our website. it's there. the rates of hospitalization for people with covid are over eight times higher if they've not been vaccinated versus fully vaccinated. so it's really important that people understand that these are incredible drugs and medicines that are literally saving lives every day. the break through infections. we continue to see break through infections. most of those, the vast majority of those break through infections caused mild to moderate symptoms. so what we really need to focus on is who's in the hospital and who unfortunately continues to die from covid-19. and ensure that we get people who have not been fully vaccinated as quickly as possible. >> reporter: [inaudible] show your identification -- [inaudible] >> about what? i'm sorry, greg? >> vaccination cards. >> yeah. you can show a copy of it on your phone, your vaccination cards when you go into restaurants starting august 20th. you can show a copy of your card. you can show your card, you can register with the state and use that as a way. again, the goal is not to punish people. the whole point is education and to make sure that everyone does their part and we're not requiring it for people who are eating outside you can do that and it's really up to the restaurants. so what we ask and comply with what the businesses are asking us to do. finally, if you need me to hold your hand while you get vaccinated, i'll hold your hand. i'll make sure you get through this. this community is very important to me and so i want to make sure that people know they can come here and get vaccinate. if not todays, we can answer any questions about concerns because this is the question i get a lot from from people so what does this virus consist of. what will it do and what does it actually mean? dr. colfax, if you can talk about it. it's complicated, but it's not like we're taking the actual virus and infecting people and i want the folks to understand that. >> thank you, mayor. and, just to be very clear there is no virus in any of these vaccines. there is no virus in any of these vaccines. you cannot get the virus from these vaccines. what these vaccines do is they prime your body to be able to fight the virus. to be able to fight the virus. your immune system fighting the and it gets your body ready to fight the virus and god forbid you don't get the virus these vaccines are safe, they're highly effective. they've been used in hundreds and millions of people. they're very important. talk to your care provider. talk to a relative who's gotten the vaccine. please, educate yourself about the vaccine. get the vaccine. it could save your life. it could save the life of someone you love. >> and, then, i'll just say that today we're going to be here for another hour and a half. if after work, you want to get vaccinated, you can go to maxine hall on golden gate and webster. you can drop in. there are people there that can answer your questions and provide you with any information and you can do your vaccine first shot, second shot at that location as well. we're trying to make it as convenient as possible. drop in. and in the meantime, thank you all so much for being here today and let's get vaccinated. [applause]

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