Covid Tracker: 19,183 cases, 172 deaths

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Good Morning, Mission! Welcome to Virus Village, your daily Covid-19 data dump.

With a new at home testing kit approved and another vaccine on the horizon, there’s lots of Covid news today.

Locally, while SFGH hosted the City’s first vaccination, DPH is showing signs of an equitable, and rational, testing strategy. It may be too soon to tell, but limiting appointments, rapid testing and a new, somewhat permanent, site in Bayview Hunters Point should help.

What has the pandemic meant for students? Lily’s day will give you an idea.

The SFPD has released body camera footage and the 911 call that led to a police officer’s assault of an unarmed Black man. Today at noon, D.A. Chesa Boudin and Police Chief Bill Scott will have a Facebook Live “conversation” about the matter.

Meanwhile the surge continues unabated. Scroll down for today’s Covid numbers.

The virus continues to run rampant through the Mission. Between November 13 and December 12, the Mission logged in 556 positive test results for a total of 2489 cases, or 41.7 cases per 1000 residents. Though the Mission has the highest number of cases, the rate of cases is much higher in Bayview Hunters Point, which has 57.7 cases per 1000 residents. The Tenderloin has 44.8, Visitacion Valley 40.5 and Excelsior 37.2 cases per 1000 residents.

San Francisco hospitalizations, especially in ICU, keep going up. On December 14, the City had 88 ICU beds and 341 Acute Care beds available.   For the week ending December 14, the weekly rate of change in Covid positive patients rose  30 percent. During that week, the seven-day average availability of ICU beds was 28 percent and for Acute Care beds 21 percent.  DPH continues to report 100 percent of required PPE on hand. 

Though good to see the local R number is not rising, it’s not falling either. Covid-19 R Estimation for California and the ensemble estmate San Francisco’s R number at 1.33.

For the week ending December 8, the seven-day average number of Citywide daily cases rose to  237 cases or 27.1 cases per 100,000 residents.

Though Native American and Native Hawaiin/Pacific Islander populations in San Francisco are relatively small, their case rates are disproportionately high. DPH reports Native Americans have a case rate of 308 cases per 10,000 residents, while Native Hawaiins/Pacific Islanders have a rate of 654 cases per 10,000 residents.

As more vulnerable populations get tested, expect the Citywide average positivity rate to grow.

Despite a blizzard of new cases, DPH reports improvement in Contact Tracing numbers! For the two weeks ending December 10, tracers reportedly reached 70 percent of those testing positive, and 72 percent of their contacts. Has the City hired a battalion of new tracers?

As cases rise at the rate they’re rising, expect to see many more deaths before the end of the year. DPH considers the 172 number, reached on December 13, to be “less reliable” (DPH-speak for too low). For the first time, DPH reports that less than 80 percent of deaths had one or more underlying conditions. However, it is unknown whether 18 percent (a new high) were similarly affected. Most likely the delay and confusion in reporting deaths is due to the difficulties in determining the cause, especially among the elderly. 61 percent of the deaths were over the age of 80.