Covid Tracker: 32,809 cases, 359 deaths

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

In the mood for some Covid optimism. Check out yesterday’s UCSF Grand Rounds featuring a presentation by Dr. Monica Gandhi on the vaccines and the variants. Happy Valentines Day.

Less optimistic is news from Germany, where once again we learn a public health crisis is first, maybe foremost, a political crisis.

We are all rightly concered about Covid related deaths. However a new study shows 1 in 5 deaths worldwide are caused by fossil fuel air pollution. Why are those numbers not being tracked daily?

CNN reports racial inequities in vaccine distribution around the country. We have no data on this in SF, though free walkup vaccination at SFGH, South East Health Clinic and Unidos en Salud site at 24th and Capp raise hope on a local level.

Meet Felix Shrayber a man who works for our eyes with his hands.

Scroll down for today’s Covid numbers.

As of February 11, 15 percent (111,637) of San Francisco residents over 18 have received one dose, while over 4 percent (30,872 have received two. On February 11, 4995 shots were delivered, and the seven day rolling average of shots per day was 5352. The DPH goal is 10,000 shots per day.  

Two months ago, a .86 San Francisco R Number  from Covid-19 R Estimation for California would have been cause for celebration. Not so much today, especially as it’s the highest in the state. The ensemble estimates .82.  Estimates for California’s R Number range from .51 to .97 for a more celebratory average of around .67

Between January 10 and February 8, DPH reported 423 new cases in the Mission for a cumulative total of 3785 cases or 63.5 cases per 1000 residents. Bayview Hunters Point has a rate of 95.4 cases per 1000 residents, while Tenderloin has 67.6, Outer Mission 56.1, SOMA 47.1, Bernal Heights 40.8, Western Addition 36.2, Marina 28.7, Russian Hill 26.1, Castro 23.9, Noe Valley 19.9, Chinatown 19.1, Sunset Parkside 17.4, Seacliff 16.5, and Haight Ashbury 15.8 cases per 1000 residents.

After steadily falling, average new cases have risen, albeit modestly, for the second day in a row. Is this the beginning a new trend?  For the week ending February 4, the seven-day average of daily new cases in the City rose to  147, or 16.9 new cases per day per 100,000 residents. 

DPH doesn’t provide updates on race/ethnicity numbers until the 18th of the month. Our chart reflects the falling case numbers in all population groups around the city and shows Latinx new cases almost half of what they were on January 27.

Hospitalizations are now lower the summer surge peak. Today’s numbers include 2 ICU transfers, and 0 transfers in Acute Care. For the week ending February 10, the rate of weekly change in Covid positive patients dropped another 23 percent.   During that week,  the seven-day average availability of ICU beds was 28 percent and Acute Care availability remained 21 percent. On February 10, DPH reports 81 ICU beds and 322 Acute Care beds available. 

Recent federal data shows the ICU ward at SFGH still at 99 percent occupancy with 0 available ICU beds and 25 Covid patients. On the other side of the Mission, the ICU ward at CPMC has 64 percent occupancy, 4 available ICU beds and 21 Covid patients.

Between December 9 and February 9, Mission residents took 33,031 tests and had a positivity rate of 5.04 percent. On the other side of town, Sunset/Parkside residents took 33,427 tests with a positivity rate of 2.76 percent. 

 In January, DPH reports unhoused residents took 7096 tests with a counter-intuitive positivity rate of 1.86 percent. Even more surprising, despite the fall-winter surge, the death toll among the unhoused remains  2, unchanged for months.

 Sorry, our Covid death chart, based on State numbers still lags. We are in the process of fixing. Meanwhile of 359 deaths reported by DPH, 62 percent are over 80 and 2 percent are under 39.