SF News BART Ridership Hit a New Pandemic High Thursday as More People Are Moving Around Ridership on BART steadily climbed this week, as the agency's communications team announced Friday on Twitter, hitting a new high Thursday not seen since the beginning of the pandemic.
SF News San Francisco Lost 15,000 Residents In 2020; California Records First Dip In Population Since Statehood New population data from the state of California for the year 2020 finds that between COVID deaths and migration out of the state, California lost 182,000 residents — the first time in recorded state history that California's population has ever decreased.
Bay Area Sports Golden State Warriors Guard Damion Lee Contracted COVID After Being Vaccinated While the timeline he describes doesn't instill total confidence, Golden State Warriors player Damion Lee is on the injured list and recovering from a case of COVID-19, after allegedly being fully vaccinated.While
SF News Oakland Coliseum Mass-Vaccination Site to Close May 23; Moscone Center to Close May 28 One of the Bay Area's biggest mass-vaccination sites will shut down for good on May 23, in yet another sign of ongoing progress in the pandemic fight — and signaling the shift in focus for the vaccine campaign.
SF News SF Officially Graduates to 'Yellow' Tier; London Breed Celebrates No More Businesses With Closed Doors San Francisco has returned, for the second and hopefully final time, to the state's least-restrictive COVID tier for reopening businesses, after a six-month struggle through a major pandemic surge.
SF News A Week Later, SF Officials Say It's OK to Be Outside Without a Mask A week after the CDC updated its official guidance with regard to being outdoors — where COVID transmission risk is already extremely low — San Francisco health officials have updated theirs.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Contra Costa County Invites Anyone to Come Get Vaccinated A standoff in Pinole ended peacefully Monday morning (though a dog was killed), Contra Costa County is telling everyone to come get vaccinated there, and PG&E will have a hearing on its probation violation on Tuesday.
SF News SF Bar and Gym Owners Get Psyched For 'Yellow' Tier Reopenings This Week Things aren't going to look radically different in San Francisco after the city enters the "Yellow" tier this week for the first time since October. But some businesses are going to be popping back open that have been closed for over a year.
SF News We Can Stop Hoping for Herd Immunity, Experts Say — It Isn't Happening Monday brings with it a fairly depressing story from the New York Times about how infectious disease experts are saying that herd immunity is no longer the goal for the U.S., and is likely unrealistic given slowing vaccination rates.
SF News San Francisco Bars to Reopen Indoors May 7, But Patrons Must Be Seated San Francisco is expected to enter the "Yellow" tier next week for the first time since October, and the city is planning to lift more public health restrictions on businesses — most notably on bars.
SF News California Has Had 1,380 'Breakthrough' COVID Cases Among Vaccinated Since January As better news arrives about mask mandates and such, we get other news that California has recorded 1,379 cases of COVID among people who are considered fully vaccinated, underscoring the need for ongoing caution.
SF News San Francisco Likely Has Just One More Week In 'Orange' Tier The state released its updated metrics for the Blueprint for a Safer Economy, and both San Francisco and Los Angeles counties look poised to move into "Yellow" status by next week, along with one other Bay Area county.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Cut Back Drinking for a While After Being Vaccinated, Some Experts Say The medical advice about drinking alcohol after getting a vaccine shot has been mixed so far, with the general advice seeming to be "don't overdo it." But some experts have cautioned that heavy drinking may seriously inhibit your immune reponse in the weeks after your shots.
SF News CDC Updates Mask Rules for the Vaccinated; San Francisco Rules TBA On Tuesday the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) updated its guidance on wearing face masks outdoors, and on the rules for the fully vaccinated — essentially endorsing what many of us have already been doing after our second shots.
SF News Two-Thirds of San Franciscans Now Have At Least One COVID Vaccine Shot In Them As of Thursday, a full two-thirds of the city (67%) has received at least one shot in the arm of a two-dose vaccine, and 40% are fully vaccinated. Appointments at the Moscone Center are also readily available right now for next week.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink SF Restaurants Are Scaling Back Takeout Offerings As Demand Slips The great takeout boom of 2020 and early 2021 looks to be headed for a bust as more SF restaurants restart indoor dining and prepare to eventually get back to something like normal.
Arts & Entertainment Sorry, Anti-Vaxx Burners: Burning Man May Require COVID Vaccine For Entry Very soon there are going to be a lot of disadvantages to not having a COVID-19 vaccine, besides the danger of getting and/or dying from COVID-19. The latest potential downside: You won't be allowed into Burning Man.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Marin County Blames Missing Yellow Tier on Spring Breakers Prosecutors say that Kristin Smart's body was previously buried in Ruben Flores's backyard, a group of Wisconsin newspapers is suing Facebook and Google, and Marin County was denied the "Yellow" tier due to spring breakers with COVID.
SF News UCSF Doc Pushes Back on Vaccine Companies, Says Booster Shots May Not Be Necessary UCSF infectious disease expert Dr. Monica Gandhi, who already this week was advocating for nixing the outdoor mask mandate for cities, also pushed back on the commonly held assumption that vaccine booster shots are definitely going to be necessary.
SF News One UCSF Doc Says Outdoor Mask Mandate Should Be Lifted; Another Says He Still Won't Dine Indoors It's getting to where infectious disease experts may start diverging in their levels of relative caution when it comes to public safety mandates. And while two UCSF doctors don't necessarily disagree in some recent statements, one is urging a lifting of SF's mandate on wearing masks outdoors.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink How Long Will It Be Before People Are Cool With Dining Indoors? The Bay Area is showing its trust in science and heeding the warnings of experts, and restaurant owners still say that indoor dining isn't as easy of a sell as outdoor dining is — even though all Bay Area counties but one are now allowing restaurants to operate at 50% capacity indoors.
SF News Pfizer CEO Suggests Third Vaccine Dose Likely Needed, Might Be Annual Thing Like Flu Shot It's looking more and more likely that ongoing immunization against the mutating coronavirus will be needed, and on Wednesday the CEO of Pfizer suggested that recipients of its vaccine will likely need a third booster dose next year.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Starting Thursday, SF Restaurants Can Stay Open Past 11 p.m., Music Venues Can Open at 35% Capacity While San Francisco awaits a promotion to the state's "Yellow" tier, the city is moving ahead with relaxing more restrictions on restaurants and performance venues starting on Thursday morning.
SF News 39 Sonoma County Residents Got COVID After Being Vaccinated — But That's OK, Experts Say, and None Were Hospitalized Sonoma County public health officials revealed Tuesday that 39 people in the county have been so-called "breakthrough" COVID cases, meaning that they became infected with the coronavirus more than two weeks after getting their second vaccine shot.
SF News FDA and CDC Recommend Pausing J&J Vaccinations Following Blood Clot Cases Six women came down with a rare blood-clotting disorder within two weeks of receiving the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine, prompting federal authorities to recommend Tuesday that states pause in distributing the vaccine just as broad vaccine eligibility begins.
