California Treasurer Fiona Ma got the COVID vaccine in December. Did she cut the line?
Millions of Californians anxiously await their doses of the scarce COVID-19 vaccine, but one California state official found her way to the front of the line in December.
California State Treasurer Fiona Ma, 54, received her first dose of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Chinese Hospital in San Francisco’s Chinatown during the last week of December, according to reports published in U.S.-based Chinese language publications. At the time, state guidelines allowed for only frontline healthcare workers, long-term care residents and first responders to get vaccinated, raising questions about whether Ma cut the line.
The San Francisco Democrat got her first dose of the vaccine even before her husband, Ventura County firefighter Jason Hodge, received his jab on Jan. 4.
“California [Treasurer] Fiona Ma received the new [coronavirus] vaccine this week,” wrote Pang Keyang of the US News Express on Dec. 30. “She also called on the Asia-Pacific community to be prepared to actively vaccinate when the new [coronavirus] vaccine is open to the public.”
A story published by the World Journal on Dec. 29 shows a picture of Ma posing with a top official from the hospital. Another photo shows a nurse giving Ma an injection in her right arm. A story in the Sing Tao Daily said the hospital had “sufficient vaccine stocks” and there is “no worry about the supply in the future.”
“Vaccines are safe, effective, and the best tool to fight against the coronavirus,” the story quoted Ma as saying. “Therefore, I call on medical staff and health care workers who have not yet been vaccinated to actively vaccinate. In the coming months, when the vaccine is more widely available to the public … I hope everyone can get the new [coronavirus] vaccine.”
How did Ma obtain early access to the precious vaccine?
“Given our long time relationship, I was asked by Chinese Hospital to be out front on this issue,” Ma said in response to my questions. “There is a lot of misconceptions and concerns about the vaccines in the Chinese community and [I was] asked if I would do a press conference highlighting the safety of the vaccines and to encourage people to take the opportunity to get the vaccines when available to them.”
Ma also said she conferred with Gov. Gavin Newsom before getting vaccinated.
Ma’s decision to get the vaccine in order to set a positive example and counter vaccine misinformation makes some sense. Vaccine hesitancy has become a problem in many communities. But why did she only tell the Chinese-language press? The treasurer’s official website contains no mention of her vaccination, and neither does her Twitter account. Her official website’s “Treasurer in the News” section hasn’t been updated since Dec. 17.
Ma’s decision to hide her vaccination from the Sacramento press corps suggests that she knew it would look bad. Newsom has declined to put himself first in line for the vaccine and warned medical providers against letting friends or relatives jump to the front of the line.
“I just want to make this crystal clear: If you skip the line or you intend to skip the line, you will be sanctioned, you will lose your license,” Newsom said on Dec. 28. “You will not only lose your license, we will be very aggressive in terms of highlighting the reputational impacts as well.”
In recent days, news stories about rich or connected people cutting the line for vaccines have sparked outrage. One wealthy Canadian couple drew international scorn for traveling 1,000 miles to the Yukon to receive jabs intended for Indigenous people.
A CNN story in December detailed how some wealthy Californians had offered doctors up to $25,000 to get vaccinated early. A lawmaker in Rhode Island has introduced a bill to make it a felony for people who are not in more vulnerable priority groups to get vaccinated early.
All of the stories about Ma’s vaccination note that she suffers from a form of hereditary hepatitis B and founded the SF Hep B Free campaign in San Francisco. Still, many Californians with preexisting conditions will be waiting months before they can get an appointment. State officials say it will probably take until June to vaccinate every eligible senior citizen.
This isn’t the first time Ma has raised eyebrows during the pandemic. A Politico story in November detailed how she pressured her staff to keep working in the office during the pandemic. Last month, Ma was the only Democrat scheduled to speak at an all-Republican conference focused on criticizing Newsom’s approach to the pandemic. She canceled after I called to ask about it.
Ma did the right thing by publicizing her vaccination in the Chinese press in an effort to build community trust. But her decision to hide her jab from the rest of California makes it look like she’s ashamed, not proud, to have skipped the line.
This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 10:16 AM with the headline "California Treasurer Fiona Ma got the COVID vaccine in December. Did she cut the line?."