Covid Tracker:22,776 cases, 184 deaths

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

Euphoria over the Vaccine has begun to curdle as penurious incompetence runs the rollout.

Will the Covid crisis serve as a wake-up call to this country’s ruined public health infrastructure? Don’t bet on it.

Although it neglects to mention the vulnerable circumstances of Latinx residents who make up over half the state’s Covid cases, the Los Angeles Times has an interesting piece on the crisis in L. A.

Before looking at today’s numbers, take a look at a new housing project on 24th street and this year’s most popular Mission Local stories.

Scroll down for today’s Covid numbers.

Between November 27 and December 26, DPH reports 737 new cases among Mission residents  for a neighborhood total of 2853 cases, or 47.8 cases per 1000 residents.  These may be low due to lack of holiday testing. 

The holidays haven’t kept Covid patients out of  SF hospitals.  For the week ending December 28, the weekly rate of change in Covid positive patients increased 16 percent. Even though hospitals are filling up with Covid patients, DPH continues to report adequate availability. During the week ending December 28,  the seven-day average availability of ICU beds was 32 percent and for Acute Care beds 30 percent. On December 28, DPH reports SF hospitals had 90 ICU beds and 442 Acute Care beds available.  The Phoenix Data Project has some interesting observations on the ICU figures and what they may portend.

Though estimates continue to show San Francisco’s R number below 1.1, this may be an artificact of reduced testing. Covid-19 R Estimation for California puts California’s R number over 1.2, while the ensemble estimates .99. And UCLA is not the only model estimating California below 1. Good news, if true.

Another drop in case numbers prior to an expected holiday surge. As of December 23, the seven-day average of new cases per day was  243 cases or  approximately 27.5 new cases per 100,000 residents. 

So far in December, the new case rate per 10,000 residents among the Latinx population is 176.9, up from 34.7 in October. The Citywide average is 74.9 per 10,000 residents, up from 13.3 in October.

Though residents of Single Room Occupancies (SROs)  comprise many of the City’s most vulnerable, DPH reports 750 cases and 8 deaths among SRO residents. Among SF’s unnhoused residents 450 Covid cases and only 2 deaths have been reported.

Though men have slightly over half the cases in the City, they comprise nearly two-thirds of the deaths.