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

DPH has not updated its headline numbers but the underlying numbers have been updated and they remain relatively low and stable.

Is it time to remove the mandate for wearing masks when you are walking outside (and within 30 feet of someone)? More and more public health pundits think so.

Worried about getting a breakthrough infection? UCSF Dr. Monica Gandhi advises you keep these numbers in your head: Out of 77 million Americans fully vaccinated against COVID: 5,800 infections (0.008%)- 0.005% with symptoms; 0.0005% hospitalizations; 0.0001% deaths (latter handful reported with other health problems).

Fear has been a big selling point over the past year. Especially because with an unknown highly contagious and dangerous virus out of control, there has been plenty to fear. But with vaccination, many of those fears are becoming “irrational”.

For many students, one long journey is ending while another begins. See Lily’s Story, a new installment in Mission Local’s graphic memoir series.

Meet Luis Vasquez, who runs Botanica on 24th Street where every candle has a purpose.

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

 

Note there are some discrepancies from the CDC data used for the chart and the data supplied from SFDPH. As of April 18, DPH reports 63 percent (487,492) of San Francisco residents over 16 had received one dose, and 41 percent (316,398) are completely vaccinated.  On April 18, the seven-day rolling average of shots per day was 10,436. 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.

Covid-19 R Estimation  once again raised its estimate of the San Francisco R Number back to 1.08 while lowering it’s estimate for the California R  Number to .95. Most models in the ensemble have the San Francisco R Number below 1, with an average estimate of .80 which is the same for California. 

Between March 16 and April 11, DPH reported 63 new cases in the Mission, or 10.6 new cases per 10,000 residents. The Citywide rate for that period was 10.7 new cases per 10,000 residents. Fifteen neighborhoods had a higher rate than the Mission, but among those only Bayview Hunters Point (15.2) and Visitacion Valley (12.6) are from the southeast sector, which represents a big change since last year.

For the week ending April 11, the seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in the City was 35 or 4.1 new cases per day per 100,000 residents.

DPH has not yet updated its numbers for race and ethnicity for the month of April. As you can see from the chart, and as reported earlier, the raw number and percentage of cases among White residents has grown while shrinking among Latinx. Why this change and  the change in affected neighborhoods noted above? No one can say for sure, but the trend has been noticeable and consistent since the the City contracted with the Latino Task Force,  underscoring the value of  community engagement in fighting a pandemic. Good job LTF! Thanks to UCSF! And kudos to DPH. It may have taken a while (too long) to move in this direction, but it finally did.

For the week ending April 15, the rate of weekly change in Covid positive patients fell 15 percent.   During that week,  the seven-day average availability of ICU beds was 35 percent and Acute Care availability was 24 percent. On April 15, DPH reports Covid patients comprised 4.2 percent of ICU occupancy and 1 percent of Acute Care occupancy. 

The latest data from the Federal Health and Human Services department shows last week SFGH had 7 Covid patients and 82 percent ICU occupancy, while across the Mission, CPMC  had 2 Covid patients and 54 percent ICU occupancy.

I’m not sure if this number has been updated, but it’s in the ballpark. The New York Times reports today a 14-day average positivity rate of 1 percent.

Although our graph doesn’t show it, California’s DPH has now lowered the average positivity rate to 1.4 percent.

Perhaps one reason why the numbers have been low and stable has been the City’s effort to protect the elderly and vulnerable. Not only have there been no new cases in Skilled Nursing Facilities since February 9,  as of April 18, 85 percent of San Franciscans 65 and older have received at least one shot, while 70 percent have completed a vaccination series. 

The current Case Fatality Rate (CFR) is approximately 1.4 percent, while the Infection Fatality Rate, roughly based on “true infections” is approximately .48 percent.

Follow Us

Mark Rabine has lived in the Mission for over 40 years. "What a long strange trip it's been." He has maintained our Covid tracker through most of the pandemic, taking some breaks with his search for the Mission's best fried-chicken sandwich and now its best noodles. When the Warriors make the playoffs, he writes up his take on the games.

Join the Conversation

1 Comment

Please keep your comments short and civil. Do not leave multiple comments under multiple names on one article. We will zap comments that fail to adhere to these short and very easy-to-follow rules.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. I don’t see that the underlying case numbers have been updated. On the SFDPH raw data download page, there is a new Note: “As of April 16, 2021, this dataset will update daily with a five-day data lag.” However, today’s April 19 data set is exactly the same as the data set from April 17. On the SFDPH webpage with the graph of the 7-day running average of daily cases, for the data shown as a table, the number of cases for 4/13 and 4/14 are 0. It would be great if there were indeed 0 positive results for tests on 4/13 and 4/14 and that there are no adjustments to past cases as is usual, but given that this has never occurred since March 10 last year, I would question the accuracy of the case numbers in today’s data set.

    Note before April 16, the case numbers have been updated with a 3 day lag. E.g., for April 15, the data set had case numbers for 4/12. Other Bay Area counties report cases numbers with a 1 day lag. E.g., for today, April 19, the data set has case numbers for 4/18. Question for SFDPH is why was the lag in reporting increased from 3 days to 5 days when other Bay Area counties can manage reporting with 1 day lag?

    It is understood that case numbers for recent days can change as test results are reported, but seeing the data as it arrives does provide a heads up if there is a spike. SFDPH should at least return to reporting with a 3 day lag instead of 5 day lag, if it can’t keep up with other Bay Area counties reporting with 1 day lag.

    Reply