While Southern California remains in crisis due to the tortuous cases of coronavirus that have driven hospitals to the breaking point, the San Francisco Bay Area is beginning to show signs of improvement.
In San Francisco, about 100 intensive care unit beds are available for a city with less than 900,000 residents, while LA County has about half as many available ICU beds for a country with more than 10 million people.
Following the home order that went into effect Dec. 6, San Francisco officials estimate that they averted more than 500 deaths in the spring and prevented even more people from needing hospitalization.
“Look what it has done to our numbers, a decrease of an estimate of 1200 fewer hospitalizations … and averted more than 500 deaths,” said dr. Grant Colfax, director of public health in San Francisco, said. “Now we must continue to make this progress.”
Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley remain in the COVID-19 red zone in California, with 0% available ICU beds. But in the San Francisco Bay Area, officials believe the restrictions have stabilized the remaining supply of available ICU capacity, which has turned around 10%. The greater Sacramento area is even better off, with the available ICU capacity at 19%.
San Francisco is also outperforming its other Bay Area neighborhoods, and the city has the second lowest fall in the region, “thanks to our commitment to staying home,” Colfax said.
San Francisco has already reduced the effective reproduction rate of the coronavirus. On Dec. 5, every coronavirus-infected person in San Francisco transmitted the virus to an average of 1.45 other people, but by Saturday, that number had dropped to 1.13. If the number drops below 1, it means that the virus will start to decrease in the city.
“As we lower the reproductive rate, we see fewer patients, requiring fewer ICU beds and fewer people dying,” Colfax said. “By staying home and not getting together, we were able to prevent hundreds of hospitalizations and save so many lives.”
On a per capita basis, the Bay Area has less than half as many cases of coronavirus per 100,000 inhabitants as Southern California. For the most recent seven-day period, the Bay Area reported approximately 386 new cases of coronavirus per 100,000 inhabitants, while Southern California had 838 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
“We are still far from the forest,” Colfax said. ‘We still have more cases – many more cases – per day than we had in the previous two increases. And we also have to wait until January to see the overall consequences of these important holiday weeks when people are likely to get together. ”
“As we face this New Year’s Eve, we must remember that the power is in our hands to keep turning the tide,” Colfax said. “Families in San Francisco have the opportunity to spend next New Year’s Eve in good health because of the choices we make this week … Please wait until New Year’s Eve of 2022 for your traditional New Year’s celebration.”
Under his advice: “Do not meet with people outside your immediate family. Do not travel. Keep distance and cover your face with a mask when and if you need to go out, ‘Colfax said.
San Francisco also requires people traveling outside the Bay to be self-quarantine ten days after their return or arrival in the city to monitor themselves for signs of illness.