On the last day of a very difficult year, San Francisco indefinitely extended its shelter orders on the spot and travel quarantine, while Bay Area public health officials made a final desperate plea for people to call in 2021 at home and skip the calls. exuberant celebrations.
Coronavirus case and death totals at the end of the year painted a devastating picture of the United States’ poorly conducted battle against the pandemic. About 20 million cases have been reported across the country, representing almost a quarter of the total cases worldwide and totaling more than any other country. More than 340,000 Americans died of COVID-19 in 2020.
California and the bay area fared better than most of the country, even with this latest increase that has put unprecedented pressure on hospitals across the state. California reported about 2.3 million cases of coronavirus in the year and about 25,500 deaths. The bay area had about 260,000 cases and 2,500 deaths.
“Like many people, I will be very happy to see you this past year,” said Dr. Ahmad Kamal, director of health system preparation for Santa Clara County, at a news conference on Thursday, during which he pleaded to people who didn’t celebrate the end of the year with parties and other gatherings.
“Please have a happy new year,” he said. “There will be time to celebrate, there will be time to gather. Not now. “
With coronavirus case count and hospitalizations still increasing across the Bay Area, albeit at a slower pace than a week or two ago, public health officials said they were not confident the region had experienced the worst of the increase current and warned that the demand for intensive care can increase dramatically with a post-holiday peak in patients with COVID-19.
The Bay Area region, which the state defines as the usual nine counties plus Santa Cruz and Monterey, had 8.5% availability of ICUs on Thursday. Southern California and the San Joaqiun valley remained at 0% availability of ICU; the large, densely populated regions have been well above capacity for two weeks.
Public Health Order
San Francisco officials said on Thursday that the city’s travel quarantine and home requests would remain in effect for at least another two or three weeks. They will reassess the end dates after the expected outbreaks of coronavirus at Christmas and New Year have passed.
San Francisco is in much better shape than most of the state and the bay area, with about 30% of the ICU beds still available on Thursday. But the city is not immune to the effects of the pandemic beyond its borders, public health officials said. The expansion of local public health orders is a reflection of this.
They extended the travel quarantine order in part to prevent a new, more contagious strain of coronavirus from being imported into the city from other parts of the country. The new strain, first identified in the UK, was found this week in San Diego County and Colorado and is likely to be circulating elsewhere, infectious disease experts said.
Meanwhile, watching hospitals across much of the state struggling to keep up with the extraordinary demand for ICU beds has stressed to local authorities how important it is to protect the capacity of the local hospital and maintain an order to stay at home that seems to be dampening the wave of Bay Area.
“Our cases are still at 247 a day, and although it is below the level of a few days ago, we still have to wait to see the impact of the Christmas holidays and New Year’s weekend,” said Dr. Susan Philip, the San Francisco interim health worker.
“This will hopefully be the last time that we are concerned about this level of increase,” she said. “At the same time, we have a vaccine that is being launched. (But) this winter period is the most worrying and dangerous period. “
San Francisco’s travel quarantine requires that people entering the city from outside the Great Bay area stay at home for 10 days. The previous order was set to expire on January 4.
The stay-at-home mandate was instituted by San Francisco on December 6 and then ordered by the state on December 17, when the availability of bay area ICUs dropped to less than 15%. The state order was due to go into effect for at least three weeks and could have been suspended as early as January 8, but San Francisco officials said it would not.
No other Bay Area county has said it plans to extend local home stay requests.
All of California, except the sparsely populated northern region, is currently under state-imposed home-stay orders. The order for the great Sacramento could be suspended as early as Friday, although that region dropped to less than 15% of ICU availability on Thursday, after more than a week of reports above that limit. State officials said the Sacramento order would likely be extended.
Cases and deaths
Coronavirus cases in the bay area stabilized this week, although part of that may be due to delays in reporting, with some counties providing sporadic updates during the holiday. As of Wednesday, the Bay Area had been reporting an average of 3,424 cases a day, down 12% from 3,879 cases a day the previous week.
Across the state, cases continue to rise, albeit slightly more slowly than at the beginning of the month. The state reported an average of 44,280 cases a day this week, an increase of 18% from 37,537 cases a day the previous week. But this week’s average includes a record 66,726 cases on Monday, which likely included cases that were not reported at or near Christmas.
The deaths have been quite stable in the bay area this week, so far. But the state recorded more than 400 deaths two days this week, both new records for the pandemic. The state toll is being driven by Los Angeles County, where the Department of Public Health posted a tweet every 10 minutes throughout Thursday to mark a new death from COVID-19.
Hospitals and intensive care
Total hospitalizations in California increased slightly on Wednesday to 20,625, including 2,075 in the Bay Area. The number of patients with COVID-19 in intensive care was also relatively stable day by day. About 4,400 people were in the ICU with COVID-19 across the state, including 507 in the Bay Area.
Hospitals across Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley remain under extreme pressure, in some places they have exceeded capacity, as critical patients have been treated in the emergency room, as well as in converted parking tents and conference rooms and gift shops. .
Some hospitals had dangerously low levels of oxygen and sterile water, used in nebulizer machines to treat patients with COVID-19 who had difficulty breathing. Bay area public health experts said the crisis in other parts of the state did not affect them directly, but made them wary of what they could face if local outbreaks were even more uncontrolled.
“I am talking to my colleagues in Southern California at times daily, and I see their situation, because we want to be prepared for this potential eventuality,” said Dr. Stephen Parodi, executive vice president at Kaiser Permanente and a disease specialist. infectious. “We hope it doesn’t come to that. And that is part of the reason why it is so important that we beat the drum of public health measures here. “
Erin Allday is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @erinallday