Covid-19 Tracker: From fear to frustration

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Good morning, Mission, and welcome to Virus Village, your (somewhat regular) Covid-19 data dump.

The numbers keep coming down, even as frustration with the unvaccinated (not you, kids) rises.

No more Mr. Nice Guy? A noticeably frustrated President Joe Biden dished out a slew of vaccine mandates after pretty much blaming the unvaccinated for a virusy summer. Here’s a good summary of the substantive steps, with some extra points Biden left out.

Biden is not alone in his frustration. The UCSF Grand Rounds docs could barely disguise their annoyance and impatience with a variant who keeps hanging around.

We’d all love to move on (to wildfires and hurricanes).

You may have read that elsewhere, particularly in low vaccinated areas, more kids are coming down with the virus, and some seriously. Not here in San Francisco, where feared school outbreaks have, so far, failed to materialize.

Speaking of schools, remember a couple weeks ago, when the SFUSD found the time and money to outfit unventilated classrooms with air purifiers? A good, and long overdue, move. But, hold on. Does anyone know what kind of air purifiers they bought? It turns out that not all purifiers actually purify. Especially problematic are the new electronic machines being widely hyped. Rather than test their machines, the companies hired celebrity salespeople, like former high priests of public health, Deborah Birx and Robert Redfield.

Lost among the vaccine mandates were Biden’s proposals to increase rapid testing. Fast, accurate tests that don’t require days of delay should be a no-brainer (so why didn’t the previous mal-administration develop them?). Rapid testing, along with protections and support for isolating positives, is considered a public good in Germany. It also works.

And as frustrated as we are with delta, consider the rest of the world, or just listen to the head of the WHO, who heard the prez promote boosters last night while failing to mention the shocking and dangerous lack of vaccination throughout Africa and South America.

Scroll down for today’s covid numbers.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control data used for the chart lags behind the data supplied from the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Here, the vaccination picture has been relatively static for at least a month or more. As of Sept. 9, DPH reports about 79 percent of all San Francisco residents have received one dose, and more than 73 percent are completely vaccinated. Despite the proven protection, the City’s unvaccinated have been less than enthusiastic about embracing The Vaccine. On Sept. 9, the seven-day rolling average of shots per day dropped again, to 333. The latest SF data (see below) suggests unvaccinated residents are about three times more likely to get infected and, if infected, six times more likely to wind up in the hospital. For information on where to get vaccinated in and around the Mission, visit our Vaccination Page.

Our hospital graph is slow to update. It should be up soon. On Sept. 6, DPH reports there were 87 hospitalizations, 61 in acute care, 26 in the ICU. The latest update from DPH says 76 fully vaccinated San Franciscans have been hospitalized (a rate of 14.3 per 1,000 cases compared to 84.8 per 1,000 cases for those not fully vaccinated) . According to the CDC, there were 47 new admissions for the week ending Sept. 7  (-22.97 percent drop over the previous week). For the week ending Sept. 6, covid patients accounted for 4.97 percent of hospital beds (-.073  percent from previous week) and 10.70 percent of ICU beds (-2.33 percent from previous week). As of Aug. 30, the CDC says that, of 173 million vaccinated U.S. residents, 12,908 patients with a covid vaccine breakthrough infection were hospitalized or died. Of that number 25 percent either had no covid symptoms or their hospitalization or death was not covid-related

The latest report from the federal Department of Health and Human Services shows Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital with 23 covid patients and 83 percent ICU occupancy, while across the Mission, CPMC had 16 covid patients and 84 percent ICU occupancy. Of 113 reported covid patients, 59 were at either SFGH or UCSF.

The neighborhood in the city with the highest case numbers and positivity rate is also the most vaccinated. As of Sept. 8, an estimated 88 percent of Bayview Hunters Point residents have had at least one vaccine dose. Of thirty-eight city neighborhoods, the one with lowest vaccination rate (43 percent residents receiving at least one dose), Lakeshore, had the ninth lowest case rate but the 11th highest positivity rate over the past two months. Between July 7 and Sept. 5, the Mission had  804 new cases (a rate of 137 new cases per 10,000 residents),  and a 4.6 percent positivity rate.

DPH reports for the week ending Sept. 2, the seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in the city was 102 new cases, or approximately 11.4 new cases per day per 100,000 residents (based on an 896,000 population). This number has been dropping about 10 per day. According to the latest from DPH on Sept. 3, the 7-day average case rate among fully vaccinated residents was 6.8 per 100,000 residents and for unvaccinated the rate was 19.7 per 100,000.  

As of Sept. 9, DPH estimates that more than 90 percent of Native American and Pacific Islander residents had received at least one dose of The Vaccine, Asians, 80 percent; Latinxs, 80 percent; Blacks 68 percent and Whites 68 percent.  DPH has no figures on multi-racial vaccination rates.

For the month of  August, Latinx residents had a positivity rate of 7.0 percent; Pacific Islanders, 6.6 percent; Blacks, 6.3 percent; Native Americans, 4.3 percent; Whites, 3.6 percent; Multi-racial residents,2.4 percent; and Asians, 2.3 percent. Only Native Americans and Multi-racial residents had higher positivity rates in August than September.

Covid-related deaths in San Francisco are always difficult to ascertain. In the last few days DPH reports an additional 11 deaths in August for a total (for now) 30 August deaths, bringing the cumulative covid-related death toll to 603. DPH provides no demographic data for monthly deaths, but reports that of the 342 covid-related deaths in SF since January 1, 8 (or 2.3 percent) had been fully vaccinated.

Despite delta’s high transmissibility, local R Number estimates remain below 1. Covid R Estimation has kep its estimate for the San Francisco R Number  at .83 and lowered its estimate for the California R number to .92. All but one model in the ensemble  estimate the San Francisco R Number below 1, with a surprising average of .79, while the average California R Number is .84. The ensemble average estimate for San Francisco has been below 1 since Aug. 3.

For the month of August, San Francisco residents 0-4 had 3.1 percent of the new cases, 5-10, 5.1 percent; 11-13, 2.3 percent; 14-17, 2.4 percent; 18-20, 2.7 percent; 21-24, 8.4 percent; 25-29, 15.6 percent; 30-39, 24.5 percent; 40-49, 13.8 percent; 50-59, 10.7 percent; 60-69, 6.4 percent; 70-79, 3.4 percent; and those 80 and older had 1.7 percent of the new cases.