Covid Tracker: 34,781 cases, 451 deaths

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

In case you were wondering, San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, from whom we take most of our numbers has apparently decided not to publish on Sundays (“apparently” because they never bothered to notify the public). ML will resume Covid Tracker on Sundays if DPH does.

New case numbers, hospitalizations and positivity rates remain relatively flat in the San Francisco although a new jump in the estimated rate of transmission (R Number) may be a cause for concern. In other areas of the country, case numbers, and variant anxiety, are on the rise.

Stop the Presses! Shocking news! California Department of Public Health has published outbreak data gathered under AB 685, requiring employers to report “outbreaks.” The health care industry leads the pack with three of the six most affected workplaces.

The current U.S. health care industry heavily relies on insurance companies. So that’s why local restaurant operator and wino Gavin Newsom turned the state’s vaccination program over to Blue Shield on a no-bid contract. Or were there other, more pressing, considerations.

Turning public money over to private profit is an old joke in “liberal” San Francisco, a city, as Joe writes, that transends self-parody.

Meet Sarah Koh, yoga instructor turned parklet painter.

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

Because the graph uses a different source, it’s numbers are slightly different than the numbers supplied by DPH.  The general trends and relationships are in sync. According to DPH,  the California Immunization Registry data system continues to undercount vaccinations. As of March 20, over  37 percent (283,156) of San Francisco residents over 16 had received one dose, while over  18 percent (136,090) had received two.  On March 20, the seven-day rolling average of shots per day was 8,564.3 .  The DPH goal is 10,000 shots a day. For information on where to get vaccinated in and around the Mission, visit our Vaccination Page.

New case numbers may be still down, but estimates for San Francisco’s R Number jumped up. Today both Covid-19 R Estimation and the ensemble estimate San Francisco’s R Number rising from below .7 to .75.  Covid-19 R Estimation puts its California R Number at .74 while the ensemble average remain .81.  

Between February 18 and March 19,  DPH added 138 new cases to the Mission or 23.1 new cases per 10,000 residents. No other neighborhood recorded over 95 new cases and 15 neighborhoods recorded less than 20.

For the week ending March 14, the seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in the City was  31 or 3.6 new cases per day per 100,000 residents. 

Most recent data show Native Hawaiins and Pacific Islanders most affected by the virus with 1481 positive tests per 10,000 residents. As of March 19, Latinx residents have a rate of 1079 cases per 10,000 residents, Native Americans 712, Blacks 459, Whites 214, Asians 212, Multi-racials 169 while the Citywide rate is 400 cases per 10,000 residents.

Hospitalizations contine to plateu around 40.  Today’s figures include 1 ICU transfer and 1 Acute Care transfer. For the week ending March 20, the rate of weekly change in Covid positive patients fell 6 percent.   During that week,  the seven-day average availability of ICU beds was 32 percent and Acute Care availability was 25 percent. On March 20, Covid patients occupied 4.2 percent of ICU beds and 1.9 percent of  Acute Care beds. DPH says capacity for a potential surge is at 100 percent.

According to the most recent data from the Federal Department of Health and Human Services, last week SFGH had 5 Covid patients and 73 percent ICU occupancy.  Across the Mission CPMC had 6 Covid patients and 76 percent ICU occupancy.

Between January 16 and March 19, Mission residents took 25,826 tests and with 671 positives for a positivity rate of 2.60 percent.

Although CADPH has begun to report workplace outbreaks, SFDPH  remains resolutely silent on the subject.  In its first report on statewide outbreaks, CADPH reported that Skilled Nursing Facilities made up 4.2 percent of reported outbreaks. Today, though it does not report on how many SNF workers contracted the virus, SFDPH reports 0 cases among SNF residents since Februrary 13, certainly good news.  SFDPH does not report on cases, among residents or workers, in residential care facilities which make up over 21 percent of the state’s reported workplace outbreaks.

 San Francisco currently has a case fatality rate (CFR) of 1.3 percent. Taking “true infections” (estimated infections not reported), the infection fatality rate (IFR) would be approximately .43 percent.