Covid-19 Tracker: Is ‘the worst’ on its way? – Mission Local

Good morning, Mission, and welcome to Virus Village, your (somewhat regular) Covid-19 data dump.

Hospitalizations, positivity rates, R Number models and wastewater monitoring are all up, while recorded infections remain flat.

Omicron sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5 are now taking over as the dominant strains in the world and will soon be dominant in the U.S. These variants are the most contagious yet. The virulence is open to question, but a rise in hospitalizations around the world, particularly in heavily vaxxed Portugal is not a good sign.

Here is a summary of the new variants.

What steps is San Franciscos Department of Public Health taking to mitigate transmission or warn of the dangers posed by the new variants?

Yesterday a subcommittee of the FDA recommended another booster for the fall which has been reconfigured to take into account omicron. But it was designed for omicron .1, not omicron .4 or .5. The data on the effectiveness of the vaccine is very limited, giving rise to a variety of interpretations.

Here are pros and cons for the new booster.

A universal corona virus vaccine is now being tested. This seems better than chasing after variants that keep changing.

High community spread undermines the effectiveness of individual responsibility and the use limited clinical tools. Understanding the infectivity of the airborne virus would seem logical, as would an emphasis on ventilation.

High community spread and re-infection increase the likelihood of long covid, says the World Health Organization. Heres an interview with UCSFs Dr. Lekshmi Santhosh on what we know and dont know about long covid.

What are the covid protocols in hospitals? Do they segregate covid patients from others? Do hospital workers wear N95s? Do they clean the air? How? And how often? Here is a summary on actions taken by academic hospitals around the country. There are no standards, and the diversity of practice is somewhat shocking. But not surprising.

Whats happening in San Francisco hospitals? Who knows? Our local celebrity experts prefer to discuss individual risk calculation rather than what their hospitals are doing to protect workers and patients.

Determined inaction by government officials at all levels has left us vulnerable to new variants and repeated surges. But why would anyone deliberately degrade community hubs, one of the most effective and hopeful programs developed in the City? As Ed Yong points out, community work has been foundational in fighting any pandemic.

Over 4 million (!!!) papers, studies and preprints have come out on covid, and we still know so little.

Scroll down for todays covid numbers.

Over the past week, hospitalizations jumped 33 percent (representing 27 more patients). On June 25, DPH reports there were 108 covid hospitalizations,or about12.4 covid hospitalizations per 100,000 residents (based on an 874,000 population). ICU patients had climbed to 22, but have fallen back to 15. The California Department of Public Health currently reports 115 covid patients in SF hospitals with 23 patients in ICU.

The latest report from the federal Department of Health and Human Services shows Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital with 12 covid patients and 8 ICU beds available, while across the Mission, CPMC had 8 covid patients and 4 ICU beds available. Of 106 reported covid patients in the City,52 were at either SFGH or UCSF, with at least 72 ICU beds available among reporting hospitals (which does not include the Veterans Administration or Laguna Honda). The California DPH currently reports 104 ICU beds available in San Francisco.

Between April 25 and June 24, DPH recorded 1,389 new infections among Mission residents (an increase of 5.8 percent from last week) or 250 new infections per 10,000 residents. During that period, Mission Bay continued with the highest rate at 432 new infections per 10,000 residents. Although Mission Bay was the only neighborhood with a rate above 400, 14 others had rates above 300 per 10,000 residents, with 9 in the east and southeast sectors of the City. In a surprise, Seacliff posted a rate of 327 per 100,000 residents (perhaps the City will pay more attention to transmission now).

DPH reports on June 21, the 7-day average of daily new infections recorded in the City rose to 422 or approximately 45.7 new infections per 100,000 residents (based on an 874,000 population), basically flat since last week. According to DPH, the 7-day average infection rate among vaccinated residents was 48.2 per 100,000 fully vaccinated residents and 94.8 per 100,000 unvaccinated residents. It is unclear whether fully vaccinated means 2, 3 or 4 doses. According to the New York Times, the 7-day average number on June 21 was 465. The latest report from the Times says the 7-day average on June 28 was 492, a 1 percent decrease over the past two weeks. As noted above, wastewater monitoring shows a substantial rise in the southeast sewers. This report comes from the Stanford model. The state is still reporting staffing problems.

So far in June, Asians recorded 3,279 new infections or 31.1 percent of the months cases; Whites 2,388 infections or 22.6 percent; Latinxs 1,333 infections or 12.6 percent; Blacks 484 infections or 4.6 percent; Multi-racials 72 infections or 0.7 percent; Pacific Islanders 54 infections or 0.5 percent; and Native Americans had 23 recorded infections in May or 0.2 percent of the June totals so far.

On June 21, the 7-day rolling Citywide average positivity rate rose 10.9 percent during the past week to 14.3 percent, while average daily testing dropped approximately 7.4 percent. Over the past two months, the Mission has had a positivity rate of 10.8 percent.

Vaccination rates in SF show virtually no change from last week.

For information on where to get vaccinated in and around the Mission, visit ourVaccination Page.

Nine new covid-related deaths, with 7 more in June, have been reported, bringing the total since the beginning of the year to 215. DPH wont say how many were vaccinated. Nor does it provide information on the race, ethnicity or socio-economic status of those who have recently died. According to DPH COVID-19 deaths are suspected to be associated with COVID-19. This means COVID-19 is listed as a cause of death or significant condition on the death certificate. Using a phrase like suspected to be associated with indicates the difficulty in determining a covid death. The fog gets denser as DPH reports, incredibly as it has for months, only 21 of the deaths are known to have had no underlying conditions, or comorbidities. DPH only supplies cumulative demographic numbers on deaths.

The lack of reliable infection number data makes R Number estimates very uncertain. Covid R Estimation on June 24 estimated the San Francisco R Number at 1.21 while its estimate for the California R Number on June 27 was 1.26. The ensemble, as of June 26, estimated the San Francisco R Number at .97 and its California R Number at .97. Note: All but one model in the ensemble show SF under 1.

So far in June, DPH reports 56 new infections and 0 new deaths in nursing homes (skilled nursing facilities), while in SROs (Single Room Occupancy hotels), DPH reports 40 new infections and 1 new death.

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Covid-19 Tracker: Is 'the worst' on its way? - Mission Local