SF News Chronicle Republishes Outdated, Unreliable Chart On How Long Different Masks Work The SF Chronicle today published what attempts to be the umpteenth definitive guide on different mask types. But the information is based on earlier variants and should not be taken as gospel.
SF News Suspicious, Unpermitted COVID-19 Testing Sites Pop Up in SF, Draw Legal Scrutiny The SF City Attorney’s Office says that "unlawful, fly-by-night facilities" hawking COVID tests were allegedly operating at Dolores Park, Golden Gate Park, and elsewhere in San Francisco.
SF News SF City Officials Won't Order Any New COVID Restrictions; Private Healthcare Networks Need to Do More Testing A morning press briefing by San Francisco Mayor London Breed and other city officials didn't bode well given the massive surge in new COVID cases. But in a reversal from earlier, less-dramatic case surges, no new restrictions on business activities are being ordered.
SF News Bay Area Cases See Huge Spike After NYE; Poll Finds 9 in 10 Americans Know Someone Who's Had COVID The numbers of new recorded COVID cases are now reflecting New Year's Eve celebrations, and across the Bay Area, cases took a huge vertical jump on Monday, with significant new totals coming from the East Bay and South Bay.
SF News Tuesday Morning Topline: Sonoma County Issues Ban on Large Gatherings Sonoma County just became the first local county to issue new lockdown orders, Newsom is proposing a gas tax "holiday," and a San Jose NYE party has been identified as a likely super-spreader event.
SF News CA's COVID Test Positivity Hits New High of 22%; Peak Hospitalizations May Come In Three Weeks One in five COVID tests being administered statewide in California is coming back positive, a new high for the pandemic now in its fourth or fifth major wave, depending on who's counting. And hospitalizations in this winter surge are likely to peak later than they did last winter.
SF News [Update] SF COVID Testing Melts Down Even More, Testing Sites Cut Back Hours Amidst Staffing Shortage San Francisco COVID-19 testing sites are cutting back their hours at the worst possible time, as the Department of Public Health announces reduced hours at four of the city's largest mass-testing sites.
SF News UCSF's Dr. Bob Wachter Details His Son's Recent COVID Infection, His Own Worry While UCSF Department of Medicine Chair Dr. Bob Wachter has mostly been a sunny and optimistic voice through the pandemic, he sounds a bit shaken by a case of Omicron that hit close to home: his 28-year-old son.
SF News Newsom Proposes $2.7B Budget Expansion for COVID-19 Response — Where Would All That Money Go? Newsom on Saturday unveiled the 2022 to 2023 budget proposal, which includes $2.7B in COVID-19-related funding, a billion dollars more than last year when $1.7B was allotted for pandemic response and relief; a good amount of the proposed funds will go toward ramping up and streamlining testing.
SF News San Francisco Is Overwhelmed by 911 Calls; Hundreds of City Workers Out Due to COVID-19 Reasons Mayor Breed shared on Twitter Friday that hundreds of City workers were either sick with COVID-19 or are isolating from a potential exposure—a tweet followed a day later by the SF Department of Emergency Management urging residents to only call 911 "for life-threatening medical emergencies.”
SF News Moderna CEO Says Second Booster Will Be Needed Come Fall; SF Doctors Suggest Creating More 'Targeted' Vaccines First Supplemental doses of COVID-19 vaccines — a.k.a. "booster shots" — slowly lose their efficacy over time. But, instead of just getting another jab of the same inoculation, medical professionals are suggesting newer, more variant-specific COVID-19 vaccines should be developed first.
SF News Of Course There Are Unauthorized Testing Sites Popping Up In SF as COVID Tests Get Scarce File under: We should have seen this coming. With at-home test kits scarce, appointments impossible to find, and lines snaking around blocks at city-authorized walk-up sites, some enterprising but shady characters have launched pop-up COVID testing sites around town that are not at all legit.
SF News Omicron Surge Should Peak Shortly In Bay Area, Says UCSF Prof — and We Need to Rethink All This Panicked Testing An emergency medicine specialist at UCSF is one of many experts saying that after this surge abates, we've got to start living with this virus as like a weirder common cold.
SF News Omicron Outbreaks Hit Multiple Bay Area Homeless Shelters, Including Two In SF Two years into this pandemic, the Bay Area is facing yet another crisis involving the homeless and COVID-19.
SF News SF COVID Testing in Meltdown, as Lines Stretch Several Blocks, Results Taking Multiple Days Mayor Breed announced a testing surge Tuesday morning, but it may be too little too late, as people are standing in line for hours and waiting several days for COVID-19 test results.
SF News Tuesday Morning Topline: Napa County Reaches Full Capacity In ICUs The SFPD is investigating the first SF homicide of the year in SoMa, 146 students in Stanford dorms are currently isolating with COVID, and Napa County has just reached its regular ICU bed capacity — though not just because of COVID.
SF News Day Around the Bay: SF Clocks State's Third-Highest COVID Transmission Rate SF now has the third-highest COVID transmission rate in all of California, Apple just became the first U.S. company worth $3 trillion, and the NYT had a piece ready to publish today on the "Epic Rise and Fall of Elizabeth Holmes."
SF News COVID Hospitalizations In SF Cross 100 For First Time Since September; Bay Area Number Doubles Since Mid-December The first days of the new year look depressingly similar to the first days of last year, with COVID cases once again surging and hospitals filling up from a spike in holiday-season infections.
SF News Monday Morning Headlines: State Begins Unique Study of COVID Antibody Prevalence Oakland's first homicide of the year happened on New Year's Day, Willie Brown calls London Breed's Tenderloin tough talk "very bold" and "grandmotherish," and California is launching a unique study of COVID antibody prevalence across the state's diverse population.
SF News San Francisco Is Poised for 'Undeniable Hospital Surge’ of COVID-19 Cases UCSF Department of Medicine Chair Dr. Bob Wachter — who has become a touchstone on Twitter for understanding the state of the COVID-19 health crisis — noted that the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has been steadily rising, though it’s not likely to overwhelm SF hospitals.
Arts & Entertainment SF Sketchfest 2022 Postponed Indefinitely Due to — Well, You Know Why The delayed 20th anniversary of the comedy festival Sketchfest is delayed yet again, but organizers insist “Hang on to your tickets!” for a future rescheduling.
SF News Top UCSF Doc Says That We Could Be in ‘A Pretty Good Situation in February’ Where COVID Is ‘Like the Flu’ An optimistic but data-rich tweetstorm from UCSF Department of Medicine chair Dr. Bob Wachter lays out the case that we could be on the verge of finally subduing the COVID-19 menace, albeit after a very rough January.
SF News A Whole Lot of December's COVID Cases In SF Are In the Marina San Francisco's whitest neighborhood, the Marina, is experiencing its highest COVID case rate of the pandemic this month — and in a turnaround from last year's trends, it's currently seeing the city's lion's share of new cases.
Arts & Entertainment Should We Go to That Big SF New Year’s Party? We Asked Leading UCSF Doctors Several New Year’s events with hundreds or even thousands of guests are still planning to pop the corks. Infectious disease experts worry this means we’ll drop the ball and ring in new superspreader-y times.
SF News [Update] SF and Other Bay Area Counties Begin Rescinding Mask-Order Exceptions Amid Omicron Surge You'll need to put your masks back on in gyms, offices, and places of worship in San Francisco and Contra Costa counties, and other counties with similar exceptions in place since October are signaling similar moves.
