On the last day of a very difficult year, San Francisco extended its shelter-in-place and travel quarantine orders indefinitely, while Bay Area public health officials made one last desperate plea for people to return home in 2021. call and skip the exuberant celebrations.
The total number of coronavirus cases and deaths at year-end showed a devastating portrait of the American fight against the pandemic. About 20 million cases are reported nationwide, representing nearly a quarter of the total cases worldwide and more than any other country. More than 340,000 Americans died in 2020 from COVID-19.
California and the Bay Area fared better than most of the country, even with this latest boom that has put unprecedented pressure on hospitals across the state. California reported about 2.3 million cases of coronavirus for the year and about 25,500 deaths. The Bay Area has had about 260,000 cases and 2,500 deaths.
“Like many people, I will be very happy to see this year behind me,” said Dr. Ahmad Kamal, director of health care system for Santa Clara County, said in a news conference on Thursday during which he begged people not to end the year with parties and other gatherings.
“Please, go have a very happy new year,” he said. ‘There will be time to celebrate, and there will be time to get together. It’s not now. ”
With the number of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations still climbing across the Bay, albeit at a slower pace than a week or two ago, public health officials said they did not trust the region to be the worst of the current one. boom is not over and has warned that demand for care could rise dramatically with an increase in COVID-19 patients after the holidays.
The Bay Area region, which defines the state as the usual nine counties plus Santa Cruz and Monterey, was at 8.5% availability of the ICU on Thursday. Southern California and the San Joaqiun Valley remained at 0% ICU availability; the vast, densely populated regions have been overcrowded for two weeks.
Orders for public health
San Francisco officials said Thursday that the city’s travel quarantines and stay-at-home orders will remain for at least another two or three weeks. They will re-evaluate the end dates after the expected coronavirus trainings are over on Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
San Francisco is in a much better condition than most of the state and the Bay Area, with about 30% of ICU beds available as of Thursday. But the city is not immune to the effects of the pandemic outside its borders, public health officials said. The expansion of local public health orders is a reflection of this.
They partially extended the travel quarantine order to prevent a new, more contagious strain of the coronavirus from being imported into the city from other parts of the country. The new strain, first identified in the UK, was found in San Diego County and Colorado this week and is likely to spread to other locations, infectious disease experts said.
Meanwhile, hospital monitoring in much of the state has struggled to keep up with the extraordinary demand for ICU beds, underlining for local authorities the importance of protecting local hospital capacity, and keeping a home order that appears to be dampening the Bay Area boom.
“Our business is still 247 a day, and even though it was a few days ago, we still have to wait to see the impact of Christmas holiday and New Year’s weekend,” said Dr. Susan Philip, the acting health officer for San Francisco.
“This is hopefully the last time we are concerned about this level of boom,” she said. ‘We have a vaccine rolling out at the same time. (But) this winter period is the most worrying and dangerous period. ”
San Francisco’s travel quarantine requires people to enter the city from outside the greater Bay Area to stay home for ten days. The previous order would expire on January 4th.
The stay-at-home mandate was instituted by San Francisco on Dec. 6 and then ordered by the state on Dec. 17, when the availability of the Bay Area ICU dropped below 15%. The state order would have taken effect for at least three weeks and could have been revoked as early as Jan. 8, but San Francisco officials said that would not happen.
No other Bay Area counties have said they plan to expand local home orders in the same way.
All of California, except for the sparsely populated northern region, is currently under state mandate to stay home. The order for greater Sacramento could already be lifted on Friday, although the region fell below 15% availability of the ICU on Thursday, after more than a week’s reporting above the threshold. State officials said the Sacramento order is likely to be extended.
Matters and deaths
Coronavirus cases in the Bay Area flattened this week, although some of them are due to overdue reports, while some provinces provide sporadic updates during the holidays. As of Wednesday, the Bay Area reported an average of 3,424 cases per day, up 12% from 3,879 cases per day the previous week.
Across the country, cases are still climbing, although it is somewhat slower than earlier in the month. The state reported an average of 44,280 cases per day this week, up from 18% compared to 37,537 cases per day the previous week. But this week’s average includes a record-breaking 66,726 cases on Monday, likely to include cases not yet reported on or around Christmas.
Deaths have been fairly stable in the Bay so far this week. But the state reported more than 400 deaths in two days this week, both new records for the pandemic. The state money is managed by Los Angeles County, where the Department of Public Health posted a tweet every 10 minutes on Thursday to mark a new death due to COVID-19.
Hospitals and intensive care
The total hospitalization for California rose slightly to 20,625 on Wednesday, including 2,075 for the Bay Area. The number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care was also relatively flat over day. About 4400 people were in the ICU with COVID-19 across the country, including 507 in the Bay.
Hospitals across Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley are still under extreme pressure, which in some places has pushed beyond capacity as critical patients were treated in the emergency room, as well as in parking tents and converted conference rooms and gift shops.
Some hospitals have found oxygen and sterile water dangerous, which are used in nebulizers to treat COVID-19 patients with difficult breathing. Public health experts in the Bay Area said the pressure in other parts of the state does not directly affect them, but it does make them wary of what they may experience if local outbreaks get further out of hand.
“I sometimes talk to my colleagues in Southern California on a daily basis, and I look at their situation because we want to be prepared for the possible possibility,” says Dr. Stephen Parodi, an executive vice president of Kaiser Permanente and an expert in infectious diseases. “It simply came to our notice then. And that’s part of the reason why it’s so important that we hit the public health measures here. ”
Erin Allday is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @erinallday