Has San Francisco reached its COVID peak?

“This trend is promising, but it’s too early to know for sure, so we simply can not watch,” Colfax said. “Our current figure per 100,000 is much higher than our summer boom when we only reached a peak of 15.4, but we are still doing better than California as a whole, where the average is 100.9 per 100,000. ” (Note: According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, the rate per 100,000 in California as of January 20 was 90.3.)

The increase in hospitalizations after the holidays is starting to slow “just barely” with the weekly change in hospitalization by 1%, Colfax said.

“The rate of change is important because it reflects the demand that our hospitals provide for acute care and ICU beds to care for COVID-19 and other patients,” he noted. “Again, this is promising and hopeful news.”

As business eventually begins to decline slightly and vaccine distribution slowly increases, some may ask themselves: Has San Francisco reached its peak?

“I think the answer is yes,” said Dr. UCSF epidemiologist George Rutherford said. “We have seen the positivity rate start to decline. We have seen cases start to decline. We see hospitalizations going down. We will see the recordings of the ICU go down and then we will see deaths go down.. So I say yes, probably. It thinks we’re on our way down. ‘

Rutherford said this with caution, noting that the numbers could easily increase if people stopped wearing masks and distancing themselves socially. “You have to be careful,” he warned. “It can bounce upright again.”

Health officials are in a race against time, not only because patients are still getting sick and dying, but because the virus is changing into forms that can spread much more easily.

An L452R variant has been found in at least a dozen counties and has been identified in several major outbreaks in Santa Clara, San Francisco and Monterey.

Rutherford believes the new variant is unlikely to cause a major boom in San Francisco if people wear their face masks, do not get together and follow public health guidelines.

“What causes outbreaks is that people do not wear masks and do not distance themselves socially and end up in stressful situations,” he said. “If it’s one kind or another, it’s all causing outbreaks. Some may transmit more than others, but at the end of the day it’s behavioral.”

UCSF doctor on infectious diseases, dr. Peter Chin-Hong, agreed that the numbers are trending slightly downwards, but he is reluctant to say SF has reached the highest point; Chin-Hong is concerned about the L452R variant, which is increasingly being identified in cases.

“That increase worries me that it’s going to be the British variant again,” Chin-Hong said. “It’s becoming a bigger part of the genotype scene. It suggests it’s taking over the COVID.”

He said he was also concerned that people would be less vigilant in complying with public health orders. “Just when it’s getting hot and the vaccine is hopeful, I’m worried we will relax,” Chin-Hong said, noting that people will still have to wear masks after being vaccinated. “Until the numbers are consistent, I can not say with certainty that we have reached the peak.”

Across California, infection indicators are ‘anything that points trends in the right direction,’ “said Secretary of State for Health and Human Services Dr. Mark Ghaly, said. It was feared that a boom after Christmas and New Year in addition to the boom after Halloween and the Thanksgiving case levels and hospitalizations to record levels.

Just a few weeks ago, there were fears that some hospitals in Los Angeles and other hard-hit areas might have to start rationing care as the training capacity runs out because regular beds are filled.

Across the country, hospitalizations are 14.5% lower over 14 days, and the number of intensive care patients is also declining. Hospitals that have seen 3,500 new patients daily currently see 2,500 to 2,900 daily admissions – still alarmingly high, but “quite a significant reduction,” Ghaly said.

The positive positivity for the virus across the country fell below 10% for the first time in weeks, and every infected person now infects less than one other person – a recipe for a final decrease in cases.

“These are rays of hope that shine through,” Ghaly said.

However, deaths continue at an alarming rate. More than 6,700 people have died in the past two weeks. In Los Angeles County, so many people have died that the air quality council has temporarily changed its rules to allow for more cremations.

Although these numbers are promising, the distribution of vaccines is discouraging.

So far, 3.2 million doses have been sent to California and 1.5 million have been administered, Ghaly said. It surpasses Governor Gavin Newsom’s goal of getting an additional million shots in his arms over a ten-day period, but Ghaly could not say whether the state has reached the self-imposed deadline for Newsom, citing backlog reports.

The delay in administering the remaining 1.7 million doses may be because some have not yet arrived in the state, and some are earmarked for those in need of second doses or for the massive vaccination sites, he said.

SF’s public health department said the vaccine was likely to run out Thursday, in part because the state withdrew with the administration of a group of Moderna shots after several health workers in San Diego had a bad reaction.

The province’s health department received 12,000 doses last week, expecting the same amount this week, but received only 1,775.

“This unreliable resource makes it very difficult to plan,” Colfax said.

Chin-Hong is hopeful that the distribution of vaccines will accelerate in the coming weeks, as President Joe Biden implements his vaccine plan to increase supply.

“I think with a new government it will give clarity on the problems and maybe put money behind it,” he said. “You can not do it overnight. Public health has been underfunded for many years. You can not just shoot a movie without preparing the actors, and the sets are ready and everyone has to practice. I think what it is. “I think people are disappointed. I hope everything will get better.”

Associated Press contributed to this story.