Hello, Mission, and welcome to Virus Village, your (somewhat regular) Covid-19 data dump.
Infection and positivity rates are skyrocketing, while the R-number remains high. Hospitalizations are on the rise, but far from what one would expect.
Twenty-one months after the start of the pandemic and I have never felt so vulnerable or so protected.
Want to know what exponential growth means? Local data scientist Peter Khoury notes that humans tend to think linearly and not exponentially.
How did your chances of getting infected change during this wave? National celebrity covid Andy Slavitt gives an idea of your chances, as well as recommendations for staying uninfected. Why do these guys never talk about what hospitals or public health facilities should be doing? I have yet to read a word about hiring more workers, tracing contacts, or supporting isolation. Without such measures, will we not be faced with the same situation over and over again?
Here is the latest thread from Bob Wachter of UCSF on the local situation. He fears that hospitals will be overwhelmed. So beyond worrying, what are hospitals (and the City’s hospital system, if it exists) doing about it?
And here some good graphics on the local scene from Chron, which demonstrate a decoupling of hospitalizations from the number of infections. Similar reports have come from South Africa and London. Despite the absence of public restrictions, the UK prepares plan B. Does San Francisco?
With the highly infectious variant of omicron, should we be more worried about outdoor activities?
Will the pandemic ever end? Probably. But that begs the question: How do pandemics end?
Note: Covid Tracker may not be released on Monday, due to delays in reporting data over the New Years weekend. It will be a playtime decision.
Scroll down for today’s covid numbers.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control data used for the chart lags behind data provided by the San Francisco Department of Public Health. As of December 30, DPH reports more than 87 percentage of all San Francisco residents received a dose, and more 81 percent received two. For residents 5 years and older, DPH reports that the numbers exceed 90 percent and above 85 percent and more than 90 percent people 65 and over received two doses. The SFDPH reports that as of December 30, approximately 379,148 residents (54% of all residents) received a COVID-19 booster dose, including 75 percent residents aged 65 and over, 63 percent for 50-64 year olds, 57 percent for 35-49 years old and 43 percent for 16-34. To find out where to get vaccinated in and around the Mission, visit our Vaccination page.
On December 27, DPH reported that there was 52 covid hospitalizations, or approximately 5.9 per 100,000 (based on a population of 874,000). The increase appears to be entirely attributable to acute care. Note: DPH does not detail how many are in hospital for covid, and how many are in hospital for some other reason and tested positive on entry. At a time when hospitalization data is more important to the public than ever before, DPH has not reported hospitalizations among those previously considered “fully vaxxed.” In New York Cityy Not only are hospitalizations broken down by vaxx and not vaxx, but also by age and race / ethnicity. If New York can do it, and Seattle can do it, why not SF?
The latest report from the Federal Department of Health and Human Services shows that the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital seven patients with covid and 6 intensive care beds available, while throughout the mission the CPMC had 5 patients with covid and 6 Intensive care beds available. Of 49 reported covid patients, 32 were at SFGH or UCSF, with at least 52 Intensive care beds available from reporting hospitals (which does not include the Veterans Administration). The California DPH is currently reporting 68 patients with covid and 114 Intensive care beds available in San Francisco.
Note: DPH uses dated population counts for neighborhoods. As of December 29, DPH estimates 50 percent residents of the Mission have been reinforced. Castro leads with 69 percent while Treasure Island and Bayview Hunters Point are the only areas in town with less than 40 percent of its reinforced resident population. Between October 27 and December 26, the mission recorded a maximum of 680 infections in the city, a rate of approximately 116 per 10,000 inhabitants. Sunset / Parkside is the only other area in town with over 600 recorded infections. The marina, with 57% boosted, continues to lead by the rate of infection, with a rate of 205 per 10,000 inhabitants, the only neighborhood with more than 200.
On December 23, the 7-day average of new daily infections in the city climbed to 608 or around 69.5 new cases per day per 100,000 inhabitants (based on a population of 874,000). The mean 7-day infection rate among vaccinated (unboosted) residents was 68.5 per 100,000 vaccinated inhabitants and for unvaccinated inhabitants, 96.6 per 100,000 unvaccinated inhabitants. Although the unvaccinated are clearly at greater risk of individual infection, the vast majority were recorded by those who received two doses of The Vaccine. Maybe it’s time to stop calling them “breakthrough infections”. There is no data on infections among those boosted.
As of December 26, 63 percent of white SF residents had been recalled, Asians 57 percent, Black 40 percent, American by birth 39 percent, Latinx 37 percent, and 35 percent Pacific Islanders have received the recall.
With omicron under control, the citywide average positivity rate has reached levels not seen since March 2020. That’s right, there are a lot of viruses in circulation right now.
Four new covid-related deaths have been recorded so far in December. The DPH does not provide monthly demographic data on deaths. Although San Franciscans 65 and over represent 10 percent of the total infections, they represent 70.6 percent of the total number of covid-related deaths. Of the San Franciscans who died from covid, approximately 3.1 percent had no underlying conditions.
Models of R numbers continue to suggest more exponential growth in our near future. Covid R estimate took his San Francisco R Number to a very high 2.3 (still the highest in the state but plus the single county equal to or greater than 2) and estimate California’s R number to be 1.96. the together raised his average for the San Francisco R Number to 1.73, while posting an average California R Number of 1.59. Almost all models in the set show SF on 1.6.
As of December 26, DPH reports that the men represented 51.7% of December infections, while women accounted for 46.8 percenttrans women 0.1 percenttrans men 0 percent while “other” (?) represented nearly 1 percent. Men represent 60 percent of total covid deaths, while women account for 39.7 percent.
