Covid Tracker: What’s up with the hospitals?

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

Not much change on the local covid front, with cases remaining in the low 50s, hospitalizations below 40, a Citywide positivity rate at a low 1.5 percent, and an R Number close to or over 1.

Caution! Rant alert!

According to a recent report, understaffed and undersupplied hospitals not only affect healthcare workers, but present a direct covid threat to patients. What is the rate of covid infections originating in SF hospitals? What changes, if any, are being made to prevent hospital transmission and to improve hospitals for future pandemics? Why do only two local hospitals routinely handle around 50 percent of the City’s covid cases? If hospitalizations are a key metric, why doesn’t the San Francisco Department of Public Health provide demographic or even cumulative data on hospitalizations? Why has hospital reporting declined over the past 18 months? Why, after a year of pestering, have we received not even a bureaucratic acknowledgment of these questions? Don’t ask me. Ask Mayor London Breed, San Francisco Public Health director Grant Colfax, Supervisor Hillary Ronen, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman. They work for us, ostensibly, not for the hospitals.

Case numbers have gone up substantially in California over the past couple of weeks, as they have in the northern states around the country. Lowest of all now are the southern states that got hit by Delta the hardest. Is it due to the high rate of infection in those states, is it weather, or is this the way covid waves happen? Who knows?

The two most hotly polarized issues during the covid crisis have been masks and schools. When you put them together, near-universal anger is assured. Here’s a piece on the downside of masking kids and why coming up with an “off ramp” for masks should be considered.

One reason for the anger is a lot of data and a little knowledge. The other, of course, is politics.

Language also plays a role. Like “breakthrough infection” and “fully vaccinated.”

Finally, despite social/political data to the contrary, some scientists believe the virus does not infect human brain cells.

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. As of Nov. 7, DPH reports more than 81 percent of all San Francisco residents have received one dose, and 76 percent have received two. Better than 90 percent of those over 65 have received two doses. On Nov. 7, the seven-day rolling average of shots per day was 364. Of 118,000 SF seniors eligible for boosters, as of Nov. 1, only 23,000 have received it. Another 52,000 boosters were given to those under 65 who are at greater risk of hospitalization. For information on where to get vaccinated in and around the Mission, visit our Vaccination Page.

On Nov. 4, DPH reports there were 39 covid hospitalizations, or about 4.5 per 100,000 (based on an 874,000 population). According to the latest from DPH, in the month of September the hospitalization rate for unvaxxed residents was 64.8 per 1000 cases while for vaxxed residents it was 20 per 1000 cases.  The picture when age is factored in provides a more nuanced view. Fully vaxxed seniors (over 60) have higher rates of hospitalization than younger unvaxxed residents. DPH says its data comes from hospitalizations caused by covid, not another medical condition. 

The latest report from the federal Department of Health and Human Services shows Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital with 7 covid patients and 9 ICU beds available, while across the Mission, CPMC had 6 covid patients and 2 ICU beds available. Of 51 reported covid patients, 27 were at either SFGH or UCSF, with at least 64 ICU beds available among reporting hospitals (which does not include the Veterans Administration. The California DPH currently reports  88 ICU beds available in San Francisco. SFDPH won’t say.

Note: DPH uses dated population figures for neighborhoods. Between Sept. 4 and Nov. 3, DPH recorded 283 cases in the Mission or a rate of 48 per 10,000 residents. During that period, although Bayview Hunters Point had the most cases (285), Chinatown had the highest rate, 87 per 10,000 residents.  By case rates and positivity rates, Chinatown seems to be doing substantially worse during the Delta surge than at any time during 2020.

On Oct. 31, the 7-day average of daily new cases in the City was 54, or approximately 6.2 new cases per day per 100,000 residents (based on an 874,000 population).  The 7-day average case rate among vaccinated residents was 5.3 per 100,000 fully vaccinated residents  and for unvaccinated residents  9.6 per unvaccinated 100,000 residents.  

DPH uses dated population figures for racial and ethnic groups.  As of Oct. 31, White San Franciscans recorded 702 cases or 40.3 percent of all October cases, Latinxs 309 or 17.7 percent, Asians 365 or 21 percent, Blacks 106 or 6.1 percent, Multi-racials 46 or 2.6 percent, Pacific Islanders 16 or .9 percent and Native Americans recorded 4 cases in October or .2 percent of the month’s total.

Between Sept. 1 and Oct. 31, the Mission recorded a positivity rate of 1.8 percent. During that time, Chinatown recorded the highest rate at 4.1 percent while the rest of the City’s neighborhoods recorded rates below 3 percent, with 29 recording rates below 2 percent. Glen Park had the lowest recorded rate at 1 percent.

As of Oct. 31, DPH reports the Delta total (August through October) has reached 90  and the cumulative covid-related death toll is now 667. Last spring’s surge resulted in approximately 90 covid-related deaths recorded between August and October. September and October numbers should be considered “less reliable” meaning updates are likely. As of Sept. 30, DPH reports 16 covid-related deaths among “fully vaccinated” residents.

Covid R Estimation kept its San Francisco R Number above 1 at 1.1 and lowered its  estimate for the California R Number to .90. The ensemble’s current average for the  San Francisco R Number is .92  and for California’s R Number, it’s  .96. Two models in the ensemble show SF at 1.1.