Covid Tracker: 34,930 cases, 461 deaths

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

That sudden jump in the local death toll reflects the past not the present. As noted previously, Covid-related deaths are reported with unusual delay.

Docs at the UCSF Grand Rounds yesterday discussed the state of the pandemic, variants and treaments. As for the race between the variants and the vaccine, the variants seem to be winning.

The Covid pandemic is not the only pandemic of concern to Asian parents who are reluctant to send their kids back to in-person learning.

Artists and performers have been hit hard by the pandemic. Annika reports on a new City program to provide support.

In case you missed it, California residents 50 and over will be eligible for vaccination on April 1, and on April 15, all California residents over 16 will be included.

Vaccines are proving to be as effective or more in the real world than in clinical trials. But as effective as they seem to be in preventing severe disease, infection and transmission, there’s no doubt that, thanks to public subsidies, they are super effective in providing big profits to Big Pharma. And the variants booster will boost price and the profits even more.

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

The problems with the California Immunization Registry have yet to be resolved, meaning these numbers may be underreported.  As of March 25, 42 percent (320,294) of San Francisco residents over 16 had received one dose, while  22 percent (164,999) had received two.  On March 23, the seven-day rolling average of shots per day was 9,142.3 .  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.

Three months ago, an R Number of .9 would have been widely welcome. Today it is a cause for concern.  Covid-19 R Estimation has raised its estimate of the San Francisco R Number to  .89 while the  ensemble  average estimate remains at  .79.  Estimates for the California R Number continue to hover  around .8.

Between February 22 and March 23,  DPH reports the Mission led the City with 118  new cases or 19.8 new cases per 10,000 residents. What attracts the virus to our neighborhood? No one can really say, but we do have an eclectic, multi-cultural, multi-racial mix with high numbers of essential(ly) screwed workers, young tech workers  and old hippies. Unlike more sedate SF neighborhoods, the Mission also has a long (even pre-historic) reputation for the best parties on the peninsula. 

For the week ending March 18, the average number of new cases was 29, or 3.3 cases per 100,000 residents.

As SF expands business reopenings, it gives no data on how the virus spreads through what workplaces. Yesterday I linked to Marc Norton’s excellent summary of the recent data released by the CADPH showing workplace outbreaks in the state and who is most vulnerable. As he says, “There is no part of the work world that remains untouched.”  However, for those who think this means “we are all in this together”, please note that “management of companies & enterprises” has the lowest number of outbreaks of any category, a mere 0.2 percent.”

Today’s figures include 0 ICU transfers or Acute Care transfers. For the week ending March 24, the rate of weekly change in Covid positive patients fell 17 percent.   During that week,  the seven-day average availability of ICU beds was 34 percent and Acute Care availability was 25 percent. On March 24, DPH reports Covid patients occupied 2.1 percent of ICU beds and 1.9 percent of Acute Care beds. DPH says capacity for a potential surge is 100 percent  in ICU and 92 percent in Acute Care.

Yes, this graph is looking very weird. We will get it fixed soon. Over the past two months, Mission residents have taken 25,405 tests for the virus, a rate of 426 tests per 10,000 residents, with a positivity rate of 2.4 percent. The neighborhood with the most tests is Sunset/Parkside with 26,174 tests taken and a 1.28 percent positivity rate. The neighborhood with the highest positivity rate is Treasure Island with 5.52 percent positive.  The neighborhood with the lowest? Glen Park with .77 percent positive. 

SFDPH only gives cumulative demographics in its death count. Despite the rise in numbers, the percentages remain fairly static with over 90 percent  of the deaths occuring among people over 60. Underlying conditions are an important factor in Covid-related deaths. Although 68 percent of the deaths are reported to have had one or more underlying condition, the presence of underlying conditions remains unknown in 30 percent of the deaths. 

After public protest, San Francisco DPH decided to include Single Room Occupancy hotel residents for vaccination although they were not eligible under state guidelines. SROs are obviously congregate settings and should have been included earlier. To date, DPH reports 1208 cases and 15 deaths occuring in 264 SRO buildings. 

SFDPH only gives cumulative demographics in its death count. Despite the rise in numbers, the percentages remain fairly static with over 90 percent  of the deaths occuring among people over 60. Underlying conditions are an important factor in Covid-related deaths. Although 68 percent of the deaths are reported to have had one or more underlying condition, the presence of underlying conditions remains unknown in 30 percent of the deaths.