Covid Tracker: 25,552 cases, 218 deaths

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

Did today’s death count grab your attention? Though the big jump represents a delay in reporting, that figure is likely low.

This morning, the New York Times features four opinions on how to fix Operation Snail’s Pace, including one by UCSF’s Dr. Bob Wachter. Something has to happen. Among supply and distribution snafus, communication borders on incoherence. Will the Biden Team ride to the rescue?

As author John Barry points out, community support networks played a critical role in fighting the 1918 flu pandemic. Fortunately that spirit survives today in the Mission.

Scroll down for today’s Covid numbers.

Between December 6 and January 4, DPH reports new Mission cases shot up again to 832 for a total of 3153, or 52.9 cases per 1000 residents.

The reported death numbers today represent a steady increase since December 23 (the date when DPH now reports there were 204 deaths). What we are seeing is the consequence of  the surge in cases which began in late October. Since December 11, deaths have increased over 23 percent, and today’s number is likely less than the actual figure. 

Today’s numbers include 4 ICU transfers.   For the week ending January 6, the weekly change in Covid positive patients rose  7 percent (which is within the DPH goal of keeping the weekly change below 10 percent). During that week,  the seven-day average availability of ICU beds was 31 percent and for Acute Care beds 29 percent. On January 6, DPH reports  64 ICU beds and 370 Acute Care beds available.  DPH does not report if available beds are staffed, but continues to assert 100 percent of required PPE on hand.

 

Covid-19 R Estimation bounced San Francisco’s R number back up to 1.13, while the ensemble held at 1.05. Estimates for California range from .9 to 1.11.

Though not rapidly at this point, SF Covid cases continue to rise. DPH reports that for the week ending December 31, the seven-day average of new cases was 271, or 31.2 daily new cases per 100,000 residents. 

For the month of December, relative to its SF population, Latinx residents had a case rate of 238.1, Native Americans 205.4, Blacks 101.6, Asians 57.7, Multi-racial 46.4, Hawaiin/Pacific Islander 48.3 and Whites 51.7. The Citywide average was 94.6.

The high positivity rate is a harbinger of more cases, hospitalizations and deaths to come.

Latinx residents had 38.4 percent of all December cases, while Whites had 22.2 percent, Asians 20.6 percent and Blacks 5.4 percent.