Good Morning, Mission! Welcome to Virus Village, your daily Covid-19 data dump.
Unlike the SF Budget, the City can’t manipulate the virus by magic tricks, ambiguous numbers or politically clever maneuvering. Too bad.
Testing is still the first vital step in controlling the virus. And while the City appears to be testing a lot of people, we still get no reports on who the City tests, or where. Nor does the City divulge its testing strategy or what kinds of tests it collects.
Scroll down for today’s numbers.
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 more cases added, the Mission has 1314 cumulative positive cases or 220 per 10,000 residents. With an estimated case rate of 459 per 10,000 residents, the area bordered by 17th and Valencia to 22nd and South Van Ness remains the hardest hit.
The seven-day average number of daily cases for the week ending August 31 is 70, or an average of 8.1 daily cases per 100,000 residents.
At .96, no big changes in the R number for San Francisco. A bit of a surprise finds the City showing up higher Los Angeles, which has an estimated rate of .89. Both estimates suggest the virus may be slowing, but not going away.
Although hospitalizations of confirmed and suspected Covid patients on Saturday jumped to 74 from 57 the day before, DPH reports the rate of weekly change in Covid positive patients fell by 24 percent. According to the Department, hospital capacity remains adequate to handle a surge.
The seven-day rolling average of positive cases for the week ending August 31 fell to 2.15 percent, the lowest it’s been since June 21. Since DPH first began its reports, 2.4 percent of the cases collected have been reported positive.
77 percent of SF cases come from people aged 50 and below. The age group from 18 to 30 make up 25 percent.
People aged 81 and over make up over 50 percent of SF Covid deaths. Of those, 90 percent had one or more underlying condition.
September 8 is the first weekly adjustment day for the California county COVID-19 transmission Tiers.
City wide, SF 7 day average daily case rate prior to 8/22 had dropped steadily from 131 to 72. In the 10 days from 8/22 to 8/31, the daily case average has leveled off at a plateau between 70 and 75 cases, or about 8.0 to 8.4 daily cases per 100,000 population. This case rate is in the California state “Widespread” transmission or Purple Tier 1, but due to SF test rate being higher than state average, a 0.65 pro-rating is applied which yields an adjusted case rate of 5.2 to 5.5 daily cases per 100,000. The pro-rating put SF in the California state “Substantial” transmission or Red Tier 2 in last week’s initial Tier assessment.
The next lower California state “Moderate” transmission or Orange Tier 3 case rate is 1 to 3.9 daily cases per 100,000. Applying the 0.65 pro-rating for SF test rate higher than state average, SF would need to get to 7 day average of 53 daily cases over 7 days to qualify for Orange Tier 3. SF has not had a 7 day average of below 53 daily cases since 6/22. As the case rate has remained at a plateau of an average 70 to 75 daily cases for recent 10 days, further large drops in the case rate might not be forthcoming in absence of additional measures to reduce the virus spread. Thus SF looks like it will remain in the Red Tier 2 in near future.
The lowest California state “Minimal” transmission or Yellow Tier 4 is for 7 day average to be below 1 daily case per 100,000 for 7 days. Even applying the 0.65 pro-rating for SF test rate, SF would need be below 7 day average of 13.6 daily cases for 7 days. The lowest SF case rate between the initial shutdown in March and the start of the summer surge had been 24 daily cases so SF has never met the criteria for Yellow Tier 4. SF might be able to get back to the Orange Tier 3 (where we were in May and early June), but the history of SF case rates does not provide confidence that we will ever get to the Yellow Tier 4 without virus spread control measures more stringent than any in the last 5.5 months.
The California county COVID-19 transmission Tiers provides guidelines for businesses and activities. SF regulations have been more stringent than the California Tier guidelines. E.g., Red Tier 2 guidelines allow movie theaters to re-open for indoor operation at up to 25% capacity or 100 people whichever is less, but SF has no regulation to allow movie theaters to re-open. While California assessed SF to be in Red Tier 2, SF is implementing measures more consistent with Purple Tier 1 guidelines. If further large drops in average daily cases occur and put SF into Orange Tier 3, SF will be under more pressure to implement measures consistent with at least Red Tier 2 guidelines. I.e., more re-openings but with challenge of enforcing mask wearing, social distancing, and interior cleaning and air circulation, etc. in order to keep the case rate low and avoid dropping back to Red Tier 2.