Good morning Mission. And welcome to Virus Village, your daily data dump.
Six months into the pandemic, San Francisco hospitals continue to lag in providing the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) to health care workers, the people who are most at risk and those on whom we are all most reliant. SF is not alone. Yesterday, Bay Area health care workers joined a nationwide protest demanding more protective gear and increased staffing. Is it too much to ask?
Meanwhile, as the virus burns its way through the City, bringing more infections and deaths in its wake, City officials send mixed messages. While warning of hospital overloads, and blaming parties for the virus’ growth since Memorial Day, the City invites more partying on Valencia Street.
Scroll down for the numbers, which are somewhat brighter today.
HiGeorge, a data visualization startup, developed some new visualizations for Mission Local, which we will be using and fine-tuning in the days to come.
With 8 “new” cases, the Mission has eclipsed the 1000 case mark with a total of 1002.
We are reporting California and Bay Area numbers though they may be artificially low. As we’ve learned, there are at least two simple ways to bring down the case numbers. One is to stop testing. The other is to stop reporting. Joe’s article yesterday on California numbers, is an example of the latter. Mostly this affects “new case” numbers which have consistently been late and fluid. San Francisco data has not been affected by the state’s problems.
On July 30, the seven-day average of daily new cases was 93 or 10.6 per 100,000 residents, decidedly in the red zone, where the City has been since June 22.
The best news to report today is the R number in SF has dropped to an estimated 1.14. Though an indicator the virus continues to spread, the rate, perhaps, is slowing. This is the first time since June 18, the R number has been this low.
Delays in obtaining test results mean the “more reliable” results come from a week ago. The seven day average for tests coming back positive on July 30 was 3.85 percent, about where it’s been for the past couple weeks.
As of August 4, DPH reports 6 patients have departed Acute Care, which along with 2 fewer ICU patients bring the total number of COVID confirmed and suspected patients in SF hospitals to 98. This is the first time since July 15, hospitals have had fewer than 100 Covid patients. The rate of weekly change in COVID positive patients, for the week ending 8/4 has decreased by 15 percent.
Men outnumber women more than two to one. More than half of those who died were over 80.
No big changes here, though increased action from local residents and attention from officials should begin to bring these numbers down which would benefit everyone in the City.
Maybe I’ve been sick for too long with this virus, going on a month now, but the reporting here and everywhere in SF really leaves out families with children and our elders.
Most families that we know cannot afford to eat and shop on Valencia Street, a street only for those with privilege (and those who have to work to serve them, who are putting themselves and their families at risk due to the reckless behavior of those with privilege).
There are public health LAWS in effect that many people chose to misinterpret and ignore at the peril of families and elders. Schools cannot open when they start in less than two weeks, which puts a lot of working families of every income level in a very difficult spot.
I think it is time for this city to start enforcing laws, not merely suggest them. If people in the Mission and elsewhere choose not to comply, they can choose to get a ticket. Restaurants and stores can choose to get shut down. No more special treatment for snowflakes.
We need to protect our vulnerable.
Other cities and countries are enforcing their rules, think LA and NYC. It doesn’t even have to be a police job — there can be enforcement officers who are unarmed and give just out tickets. And make those tickets expensive enough to help pay for testing, treatment, PPE, and helping to prepare schools for reopening.
This city is not the place I fell in love with decades ago and chose to stay and raise my family. The sense of community is just gone.