San Francisco crossed another milestone in this pandemic late Tuesday when officials announced the city's first death from the coronavirus.

The patient was said to be a man in his 40s with "multiple, significant underlying health conditions" according to public health officials.

Mayor London Breed issued a statement saying, "It is a sad day, and we need to pull together as a City to do everything in our power to reduce the likelihood of additional deaths in our community." She went on to reiterate the importance of the shelter-in-place order, saying "Each of us has the power to save lives and decrease the impact of coronavirus in San Francisco."

More deaths are likely to occur in San Francisco, following patterns in New York and elsewhere, though public health officials are hoping that the explosion of cases that has come to other hot spots does not occur here. As KPIX reports, a source at the city's Department of Emergency Management believes that SF is five to ten days behind New York in terms of the spread of the virus, and the next week should tell if we have succeeded in "flattening the curve" or not.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Bay Area crossed the 1,000 mark on Tuesday, and numbers continue to rise in Santa Clara county, where 125 people have been hospitalized and 375 people have tested positive for the virus. The death toll in that county rose to 16 yesterday.

In San Francisco on Wednesday we reached 178 confirmed cases, and the case count has risen 16 percent in each of the past two days. That would mean that the number of cases here will double every six days if they stay at this rate.

And, on Tuesday, Los Angeles County reported the death of a person under the age of 18, marking what is believed to be the first death of a child from the virus in the United States.

Governor Gavin Newsom said in remarks on Tuesday that half off of California's confirmed COVID-19 cases are people between the ages of 18 and 49. "Young people can and will be impacted by this virus," Newsom said.

There are now 2,628 confirmed cases in California.

Related: Bay Area Coronavirus Information — Updated Daily

Photo: Eduard Militaru