SF News SF Nurse Who Barely Survived COVID Sparks Online Anger for Allegedly Attending New Year's Circuit Party A nurse who posted photos of himself last May as a warning to others about how COVID-19 had ravaged his body over the course of six weeks in the hospital has attracted negative attention after apparently posting online about attending a gay circuit event in Mexico over the New Year's Eve holiday.
SF News Bay Area ICU Capacity Reaches Record Low; Post-Thanksgiving Surge Finally Slowing Down San Francisco extended its stay-at-home order indefinitely right before the new year, citing a worrisome climb in hospitalization numbers around the Bay Area. Sunday, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) revealed the Bay Area’s current ICU capacity is now at 8.4%.
Arts & Entertainment SF Supervisor Hopes to Raise Funds From Local Billionaires to Save Nightlife Venues Supervisor Matt Haney hopes to create a nightlife fund that will attract private-sector donations so that the city doesn't lose one of its greatest cultural assets before the pandemic is through with us.
SF News New Outbreak at Laguna Honda Infects 50 and Counting, Kills 3 Elderly Residents A new outbreak of COVID-19 at San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital — the first since a small outbreak was quickly contained in the spring and became a model for other long-term care facilities dealing with the pandemic — has infected more than 50 staff members and residents, and continues to grow.
Arts & Entertainment Covidiot Files: Five Northern California Casinos Staying Open for New Year's, Two With Private Events At least one casino in the Sacramento area is still planning to have a 6,000-person private event on New Year's Eve, even though there is no universe where this is not extremely risky.
SF News More Contagious Virus Variant From UK Found In Colorado Patient, Is Likely Everywhere Thanks to more sophisticated testing being done on virus samples in Colorado, officials there say the first detected U.S. case of COVID-19 variant B.1.1.7 has been found there.
SF News Colfax Sounds Cheerier As He Delivers Last COVID Update of 2020, Discusses SF Outlook Both daily new case totals and hospitalizations may be peaking or nearing a peak in San Francisco, indicating a possible — possible! — reprieve in the current surge. And SF's Director of Public Health Dr. Grant Colfax wants everyone to know he's proud of you.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Twin Peaks Tavern in Castro Turns to Crowdfunding to Make It Through Lockdown For the second time this year, an iconic Castro bar is turning to patrons and fans for help, as it once again sits closed and without a source of revenue for an indefinite span of time.
SF News Signs Point to Plateau in Bay Area COVID Cases, Hospitalizations as Some Hospitals Cancel Non-Emergency Surgeries There are at least signs that, for the moment, Bay Area hospitals have avoided seeing the unmanageable crush of new COVID patients that had been predicted around Christmas.
SF News Bay Area Stay-at-Home Order Likely To Be Extended Past Three-Week Duration The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced Friday that stay-at-home orders in four regions, including the Bay Area, are likely to stay in place past their original three-week duration — solidifying what many of us have been thinking as Bay Area hospitals crowd with COVID-19 cases.
SF News Graton Resort & Casino Suddenly Axes 4,000-Person New Year's Eve Party After piquing the attention of Sonoma County health officials and worried members of the public, the NYE shindig at Graton Resort & Casino in Rohnert Park — which had all the makings of possibly becoming a regional superspreader event — has been canceled.
SF News Fox News Punked Live, On-Air by Berkeley Animal Rights Activist Posing as Pork-Processing CEO A Berkeley troublemaker hit the jackpot by successfully fooling Fox Business’ ‘Mornings with Maria’ on a live segment that of course went brilliantly awry.
SF News Teachers, Police, and Food Service Workers Could Be Next to Get COVID Vaccine in California A committee tasked with recommending who will be in the "Tier 1-B" group for COVID vaccinations in California, and they met Wednesday to begin finalizing those recommendation.
Arts & Entertainment Graton Casino in Sonoma County to Host 4,000-Person New Year's Eve Party The Graton Resort & Casino in Sonoma County, which is on the sovereign land of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, is hosting a 4,000-person private event on New Year's Eve. And while county health officials are not happy about it, they can't do anything to stop it.
Business & Tech United Airlines Passengers Who Gave Aid to Dying Man With COVID Were Given $75 Flight Voucher It's been confirmed that a man who died last week in some respiratory or cardiac distress on board a California-bound United flight out of Orlando was COVID-positive. And now passengers who helped administer medical aid are wondering why they had to find out from the news media.
SF News Mayor Breed Says Stay-at-Home Orders Are Reducing Daily Case Counts in SF Mayor London Breed and Dr. Grant Colfax took to Zoom again on Tuesday to give a press briefing on where things stand with the pandemic in San Francisco. And for a change — for the first time in two months really — the news was fairly good.
SF News Human Impulses, Pandemic Fatigue Driving People to Ignore Health Warnings and Gather for Holidays "For every cold statistic there is an equally human justification [for traveling]," the LA Times writes.
SF News Newsom Suggests Regional Stay-at-Home Orders May Get Extended Into January The three-week stay-at-home orders issued at the state level for the vast majority of Californians since early December are not likely to expire as planned, and are mostly likely getting extended — but how this will work for the Bay Area remains to be seen.
Business & Tech Airbnb Removes 65 Listings for Scofflaw 'Party Houses' In SF, Oakland, and San Jose Airbnb is again cracking down on "party houses" that seem to have incurred violations around the Bay Area, but why is this coming up now when technically no vacation rentals are even permitted here?
SF News Covidiot Files: Trump-y Pacifica Yoga Studio Owner Continues Flouting Health Orders, Hosting Mask-Free Classes A yoga studio in Pacifica that has apparently been holding in-person classes without masks since the spring or summer — and whose owner fills social media pages with pro-Trump and anti-Biden memes — continues to do so, and serves as an example of how poorly enforcement efforts are working.
SF News California-Bound Passengers On United Flight Being Informed of Possible COVID Exposure After Man Dies Onboard A man who denied having symptoms of COVID-19 boarded a United Airlines flight in Orlando on Monday bound for Los Angeles. Shortly into the flight he suffered a medical emergency and died onboard, and his wife was heard telling medical personnel that he had COVID symptoms.
SF News Stanford Medical Residents Revolt After Doctors Who Don't Treat COVID Patients Get Priority for Vaccine Before Them Residents working at Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto staged a protest Friday to demand that they be given priority in the line for healthcare workers getting the Pfizer COVID vaccine.
SF Politics Rest Easy, Everyone: Nancy Pelosi Has Been Vaccinated House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is trucking along and corralling her caucus like a pro at age 80, is in a high-risk category for COVID both because of her age and being an "essential worker." But as of Friday, she has received her first shot of the vaccine.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Santa Clara County Health Officer Says 'We Are In Bad Shape' Federal agents busted a family drug ring selling in the Tenderloin, a two-alarm fire displaced nine people in West Oakland, and Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody got choked up while delivering her latest update on the pandemic.
SF News Amid Spike In COVID Cases Among Homeless, Supervisors Extend Hotel Room Program San Francisco will continue ushering people off the streets and into shelter-in-place hotel rooms for at least two months, after the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an extension of a program that would have expired in just two more weeks.
