SF News [Update] BART Says Hold Up, You Still Need to Wear Masks, Then Reverses Following that federal judge's ruling on Monday that abruptly ended mask mandates on planes and public transit, BART reportedly told its police not to enforce mask-wearing on Tuesday. But now, they've issued a statement similar to the SFMTA's saying masks are still required, for now.
SF News Are We Seeing a Fifth COVID Surge In SF Right Now? Probably. The official daily case count probably isn't reliable, but other metrics suggest that San Francisco is probably in the midst of its BA.2 surge, which experts predicted would likely not be as significant as this past winter's first Omicron surge.
SF News Masks Come Off on BART, Airplanes, and In Uber and Lyft Cars — But Not Muni — Following Ruling By Trump-Appointed Judge A Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida issued a ruling Monday that denied the authority of the CDC to continue its federal mask mandate on planes and public transit — a mandate that was set to expire in two weeks anyway.
SF News Masks to Only Be Required on Planes and Public Transit Until May 3 The CDC just extended its federal mask mandate for airplanes and public transit another two weeks, until May 3, amid rising cases of the BA.2 Omicron subvariant, particularly on the East Coast.
SF News Anyone Who Tests Positive For COVID In San Francisco and Has Risk Factors Should Seek Out Antivirals, City Says San Francisco has a supply of the two antiviral drugs approved for treating cases of COVID-19, but they may have to return thousands of doses if they don't get used — and thousands have already been returned to the federal government.
SF News Naturopathic Quack In Napa Takes Plea In Federal Case Involving Fake Vaccine Cards and Fake Vaccine 'Pellets' A Napa-based naturopathic doctor took matters a little too far in her homeopathic advice to patients about COVID-19, both discouraging them from getting "toxic" vaccines and duping them into taking pellets she claimed would provide lifelong immunity from the virus.
SF News COVID Cases In SF Still Slightly Higher Than Elsewhere In California, Hospitalizations Plateau There is no cause for alarm, local experts say, but San Francisco's COVID picture isn't yet back to the very low case counts of mid-Fall 2021, with the Omicron and BA.2 variants still driving transmission as people's immunity wanes.
SF News Notorious COVID Cruise Ship Docked Again in SF with Infected Passengers Sunday, But It’s Gone Now The Ruby Princess cruise ship, once known as the “Plague Ship” for its superspreading role early in the pandemic, arrived at the Port of San Francisco with positive cases Sunday, but left for Hawaii later in the day.
Arts & Entertainment No Need for Vaxx Cards at Chase Center Starting Next Month, But You Still Need Your Mask If You're Unvaxxed The lifting of mandates has come at a very fast pace in California in recent weeks, and now we officially have word from the Chase Center that they will stop checking vaccination status as of April 1.
SF News Yet Another COVID-19 Surge? Wastewater Samples Suggest That Yes, We May Be in for Another Wave While it may just be a blip, the CDC confirms that wastewater samples from a third of the country’s sample sites show increasing case counts, right while China and Europe are seeing big COVID surges.
SF News Masks Will Remain Required on Planes and Public Transit Until April 18, TSA Says The federal Transportation Security Administration announced Thursday morning that Americans will need to keep wearing masks through at least April 18 on public transit, on planes, and in transit hubs.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink San Francisco Is Dropping Vaccine Requirement for Bars and Restaurants Starting Friday For the first time in six months, you'll be able to enter a bar or restaurant in San Francisco without showing your vaccination card starting on Friday, March 11.
SF News Omicron Wave Was Far Deadlier For the Vaccinated Elderly In CA Than Delta As the U.S. death toll from the pandemic nears one million people and the worldwide death toll hits six million, new data suggests that the recent Omicron wave was much deadlier for the elderly, whether they were vaccinated or not, than previously understood.
SF News SF Unified Backtracks, Says Masks Will Be Optional at Many City Schools Starting March 12 Just four days after suggesting it would be extending the mask mandate for San Francisco students beyond the state's recommended date, San Francisco Unified School District announced Friday that the masks will, in fact, be optional starting March 12 at middle and high schools.
Business & Tech Google Tells Workers It's Back-to-the-Office Time Starting April 4 There have been some false alarms and variant-related surprises in the past, but it could be that Spring 2022 will usher in a new late-pandemic phase of workers grudgingly returning to cubicles and conference rooms in SF and Silicon Valley.
SF News New Study: COVID Can Infect Men's Genitals, Cause Infertility and Erectile Dysfunction It's been some months since Nicki Minaj and others amplified the falsehood that COVID vaccines made men's testicles swell up. And now some researchers have found that the COVID-19 virus gets into the penis, prostate, and testicles.
SF News California to Lift School Mask Mandate In Two Weeks; Unvaccinated People Can Go Maskless Indoors This Week The long-awaited lifting of the state's mask mandate for schoolchildren arrives in two weeks — though individual school districts may still decide to keep it in place longer.
SF News Oakland Woman Who Spent PPP Loans On Louis Vuitton Bags and Private Jets Gets Three Years In Federal Prison A 32-year-old Oakland woman who was arrested and charged last year in a scheme to defraud the federal government out of $4.5 million in pandemic relief funds has just been sentenced to three years in prison and will have to pay over $1 million in restitution.
SF News Santa Clara County Will Follow Rest of Region and Lift Mask Order Next Week Two weeks behind San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area, Santa Clara County will be lifting its indoor public mask mandate next week — though, like the rest of the region, unvaccinated people are still on the honor system and supposed to be masking up.
SF News SF COVID Cases Continue Downward Slide, But Still Not In 'Safe' Territory The masks have come off in many places around the Bay Area, and daily COVID case numbers continue their downward trajectory — but they haven't hit the rock-bottom levels of the early summer or late fall yet.
SF News East Bay Assemblymember Proposes Mandatory Vaccination For All California Employees Nobody tell the truckers, but Oakland state assemblymember Buffy Wicks just unveiled a bill that would require every single employee in the state of California to be fully vaccinated.
SF News San Francisco and Seven Other Bay Area Counties Will Drop Indoor Mask Rules Next Week The masks come off on February 16 in Bay Area grocery stores, bars, restaurants, museums, and everywhere else whether you like it or not — but Santa Clara County will still be playing it safer.
SF News Omicron Has Killed 12% More Bay Area Residents Per Week Than Delta Here in the highly vaccinated Bay Area, the infectiousness of the variant still managed to take a bigger toll than the more severe Delta variant did last summer and fall.
SF News Mystery COVID 'Lineages' Found In Viral Fragments In Wastewater In California and New York Not that the pandemic-anxious need anything to add to their arsenal of anxiety sources, but the New York Times has a story today about an ongoing mystery happening in wastewater surveillance of COVID-19 that researchers can't pin down.
SF News Masks Come Off at SF Gyms Again as COVID Cases Decline; Wachter Suggests We'll Hit 'Regionally Endemic' In Feb. The Omicron surge has shown signs of peaking and/or declining in multiple parts of the country, and in the Bay Area it is definitely receding, along with hospitalizations.
