Good morning, Mission, and welcome to Virus Village, your (somewhat regular) Covid-19 data dump.
Hospitalizations have declined a bit, but the rise in recorded infections and positivity rates continues. R Number estimates put San Francisco around 1.
This is National Public Health Week.
Omicron BA.2 is visiting San Francisco. How long it’s planning to stay, and whether it will be a wave, a surge, or a bump in the road remains to be seen. Right now, the City and region seem to be doing worse than the rest of the state.
Expect to see the word “seem” a lot more as data becomes more unreliable or simply unavailable. Do our public officials care? Anyone heard from the Mayor lately? Dr. Grant Colfax? Gov. Gavin Newsom? Here’s what the Department of Public Health considers “Covid Ready”. Good advice, but no mention of public policy initiatives. What is the City doing to get ready?
Don’t expect the “full Shanghai.”
In Washington, cruel and usual cynicism has reached new extremes.
Is it any wonder this rise has been already christened the “So What Wave?”
In fairness, no one knows how the BA.2 surge will play out. So far, besides being the most contagious variant yet, it also seems like the most unpredictable.
A little late, but a booster strategy (other than “it’s up to you”) might be a good idea. Can there be too much of a good thing? We may find out soon. To make ends meet, one entrepreneur in Germany got 90 shots.
Even though it’s poorly tracked, there is no question that the country’s class and race inequalities have been painfully reflected in racial and occupational covid data. For some, this is a moral outrage. For others, it’s a sign to carry on as usual.
Scroll down for today’s covid numbers.
Subscribe to our daily newsletter and have the latest stories from Mission Local delivered directly to your inbox.
Over the past week, hospitalizations have dropped 17 percent. On April 2, DPH reports there were 20 covid hospitalizations, or about 2.3 covid hospitalizations per 100,000 residents (based on an 874,000 population). ICU patients remain in single digits as has been the case since March 2. Today, the California Department of Public Health reports 23 covid patients in SF hospitals and 3 ICU patients.
The latest report from the federal Department of Health and Human Services shows Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital with 5 covid patients and 12 ICU beds available, while across the Mission, CPMC had 2 covid patients and 5 ICU beds available. Of 35 reported covid patients, 21 were at either SFGH or UCSF, with at least 73 ICU beds available among reporting hospitals (which does not include the Veterans Administration). The California DPH currently reports 114 ICU beds available in San Francisco.
Between Jan. 31 and April 1, DPH recorded 608 new infections among Mission residents or 103 new infections per 10,000 residents. For the first time in recorded history, the Mission had a lower rate than Seacliff (112)! During that period, Mission Bay had the highest rate at 169 new infections per 10,000 residents. Of 38 neighborhoods, 26 had rates above 100 per 10,000 residents. Twin Peaks had the lowest rate at 68 per 10,000 residents.
DPH reports on March 29, the 7-day average of daily new infections recorded in the City rose to 110 or approximately 12.5 new infections per day per 100,000 residents (based on an 874,000 population), representing a 15.8 percent rise from last week. According to DPH, the 7-day average infection rate among vaccinated residents was 11.1 per 100,000 “fully vaccinated” residents and 25.8 per 100,000 unvaccinated residents. It is unclear whether “fully vaccinated” means 2, 3 or 4 doses. According to the New York Times, the 7-day average number was 114 on March 29. The latest report from the Times says the 7-day average number on April 5 was 131 a 119 percent increase over the past two weeks. For those interested in wastewater monitoring, see here.
asWe are working to improve the graph. For the month of March, DPH reports Whites accounted for 931 recorded infections or 31.7 percent of the month’s total; Asians 800 infections or 27.2 percent; Latinxs 264 infections or 9 percent; Blacks 69 infections or 2.4 percent; Multi-racials 34 infections or 1.2 percent; Pacific Islanders 14 infections or .5 percent; and Native Americans had 7 infections or .2 percent of the March total.
WeFor the month of March, DPH reports a 3.6 percent positivity rate among Mult-racial San Franciscans, Pacific Islanders 3.4 percent, Native Americans 3.3 percent, Whites 3 percent, Asians 3 percent, Latinxs 2.3 percent, and Blacks had a positivity rate of 1.7 percent for the month of March.
As of April 5, DPH reports 782,377 San Franciscans have received at least one vaccine dose, 89 percent of all San Francisco residents. 83 percent have received two. For residents 5 and older, those with one dose remain above 90 percent and those with two remains at 87 percent while for those 65 and older over 90 percent have received two doses. The number of San Franciscans who have received boosters is virtually unchanged from last week. As of March 29, approximately 473,588 SF residents (66 percent of all residents, 83 percent of residents 65 and older) have received a COVID-19 booster dose, an increase of less than .2 percent over the past week.
For information on where to get vaccinated in and around the Mission, visit our Vaccination Page.
Four new covid-related deaths have been reported, bringing the total since the beginning of the year to 154. DPH won’t say how many were vaccinated and how many were unvaccinated. Nor does it provide information on the race/ethnicity or socio-economic status of those who have recently died. The omicron death toll seems higher than delta. During and after the delta surge, July-October, the number was 105. According to DPH “COVID-19 deaths are suspected to be associated with COVID-19. This means COVID-19 is listed as a cause of death or significant condition on the death certificate.” Using a phrase like “suspected to be associated with” indicates the difficulty in determining a covid death. The ambiguity is heightened when currently DPH continues to report only 21 of the 848 deaths are known to have had no underlying conditions, or comorbidities.
Reflecting a great deal of uncertainty, Covid R Estimation on April 1 estimated the San Francisco R Number at a very high 1.65 while currently estimating the California R Number estimate at .88 on April 4. The ensemble, as of April 4, estimates the San Francisco R Number at .91 while estimating the California R Number at .87. Only one model in the ensemble has SF over 1.
As of April 1, DPH reports 3 recorded infections and 0 covid-related deaths among residents at “skilled nursing facilities” (nursing homes). Residents in the City’s Single Room Occupancy hotels had 43 recorded infections 3 covid-related deaths in March while those San Franciscans who do not have shelter had 32 recorded infections in March. Since the beginning of the pandemic, DPH has recorded 12 covid-related deaths among the unhoused.
You matter. Every $ you give helps us cover the city.
We rely on you, our readers, to fund our journalism.
data dot covid-web dot org has new wastewater treatment April 4 and since March 24, Oceanside is slightly down and Southeast is slightly up and Newhall/Fairfax is not reporting.
Since January 31 till not, I think one could plot a straightline through the waist water values, though perhaps it is curved and heading up again with a March 14th bottom.
The concern being raised now is reasonable I guess, although the 13/100K for SF number I am seeing from the ca dot gov dashboard is only slightly higher than the 10/100K number that has been Bob Wachter’s personal, (somewhat arbitrary) metric he uses as a 63year old in good shape to determine if he will eat indoors at a restaurant without a mask…
So a relative high compared to the rest of the state, but still all in all, seemingly fairly low, especially if the officials are right to attribute some of this rise to increased tourism in SF. … (And hasn’t SF long been known for being relatively high compared to the rest of the state? badum-tish)
I’m trying to decipher news I heard that cases in UK are up given what seem to be displayed at the financial times tracking covid page showing cases peaked March 24 and are dramatically down since then (120/100K cases/day to 80/100K cases/day)
The BA.2 curve for the UK I see at the FT page is remarkably lower than the peak initial Omicron curve (270 -> 120) and basically spanned a month.
So much (often conflicting) data to try to turn into information, knowledge and action.
Hoo boy. Bone-chilling stuff. Thanks as always, Mark, for doing the best you can with this sh*itshow of a lack of adequate data from the Department of Public Health.
I worry about the impact this will have on San Francisco’s most vulnerable. And I wonder how much longer it will be before immunocompromised people can safely leave the house.
It really does seem borderline eugenicist.
It’s reckless and unconscionable to drop all these safety precautions and scale back on the data at the same time.
“Four new covid-related deaths have been reported, bringing the total since the beginning of the year to 154. DPH won’t say how many were vaccinated and how many were unvaccinated.”
Do they not want to say because the individuals were vaccinated, and thus their deaths would go against the establishment’s narrative?
It’s encouraging that despite all the government propaganda around Covid, the dishonest death reporting, etc., and the efforts to force everyone to get vaccinated – firing people from their jobs, creating two-tiered apartheid policies discriminating against the unvaxxed, etc. – more than 1 in 10 people even here in SF have resisted by exercising their rights to make their own personal health choices.
The die-hard authoritarians want us to be alarmed about the latest “wave”, but in the face of fewer people actually being hospitalized, having serious cases or dying, they’re having a harder and harder time trying to justify authoritarian mandates and apartheid society measures.