Covid Tracker: 31,857 cases, 345 deaths

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

The death toll from the recent surge continues to rise and we probably have not seen the end of it yet.

In welcome news, SFGH will provide free walk-up vaccinations to eligible residents living in three of the City’s most heavily impacted areas . In addition, the City is opening a mass vaccination site at the Moscone Center. Together, the new sites could vaccinate as many as 10,500 a day.

Great! But as distribution problems begin to get worked out, the state of vaccine supply is “opaque”.

Improved vaccination rates lead some to be optimistic, while others are more pessimistic in the face of the new variants.

If the new more transmissible variant takes hold, the debate whether to open schools will likely get much more heated.

Meanwhile the SFPD has promised to crack down on sideshows, and this weekend, check out what’s happening in the neighborhood this weekend, including fundraisers to keep food coming to those in need.

While waiting for the Vaccination, scroll down for today’s Covid numbers.

As of February 3, 10 percent (75,275) of San Francisco residents over 18 have received one dose, while a bit more than 3 percent (20,475) have received two. On February 3, 3499 shots were delivered, and the seven day rolling average of shots per day increased to 3,302. The DPH goal is 10,000 shots per day.

We will probably be hearing more about the R Number in the weeks to come. To thwart the B117 variant, some suggest we will need to lower the current R Number below .7 and keep it there.  Today’s estimates for the San Francisco R Number range from .72 to .97, with an average of over .75. The estimate for California ranges from  .7 to .94 for an average of .76.

Between January 3 and February 1, DPH reported 605  new cases in the Mission for a cumulative total of 3712 or 62.2 cases per 1000 residents. Bayview Hunters Point currently has a rate of 93.7 while the Inner Sunset has a rate of 14.9 cases per 1000 residents.

For the week ending January 28, the seven-day average of daily new cases dropped again to 146, or 16.8 new cases per day per 100,000 residents. 

 

Today’s numbers include 1 ICU transfer, and 1 Acute Care transfer. For the week ending February 3, the rate of weekly change in Covid positive patients rose 1 percent.   During that week,  the seven-day average availability of ICU beds was 27 percent and for Acute Care beds 22 percent. On February 3, DPH reports  7  ICU beds and 308 Acute Care beds were available. 

Though the graph looks better (not good), healthcare workers in Fresno say their emergency and ICU departments are still inundated with patients.

Nice to see the Citywide average positivity rate coming back down to 3 percent which was the pandemic average before the recent surge. The average doesn’t tell the whole story in our tale of two cities, so in our part of town the positivity rate is at least a few points higher. Between December 2 and February 3, the positivity rate in Bayview Hunters Point has been 8.5 percent. 

The California 14 day average positivity rate fell below 7 percent for the first time since November 30.

For the month of January, the population group in SF aged 20 to 49 accounted for almost 4000 cases, or 56 percent of all those who tested positive for Covid. A new study suggests this population group accounted for 72 percent of the national surge beginning in late summer. 

 There’s a discrepancy between what the City reports and what the State reports. Our numbers for this graph come from the State. Hopefully whatever communications, or counting, glitch that that sprung up between the City and the State will get fixed soon. In the meantime, yes, the City claims 17 new deaths from its last report of 328. More important than the actual number is the trend line which is still going up.