As hospitals around the Bay Area fill with COVID-19 patients, San Francisco is feeling increasingly like an island. It has more intensive-care capacity than its neighbors and still one of the lowest infection rates in the country. Now, city leaders are taking the next step to further isolate themselves.
On Thursday, San Francisco officials ordered all incoming travelers from outside the Bay Area to quarantine for 10 days and discouraged any nonessential travel within the region. The impetus for the order, health director Dr. Grant Colfax said, was to avoid a potentially “catastrophic situation” where its hospitals are overrun in a similar fashion to others around the country.
“While we in San Francisco are in a grave situation, other places are unfortunately even worse off,” Colfax said Thursday during a virtual news conference. “This means people who travel outside of San Francisco and visitors from other areas are at much higher risk of being infected and spreading the virus. … As we head into this holiday season and with cases still accelerating at a staggering rate, we want to take every step possible to slow the spread.”
In San Francisco, the per-capita infection rate is still lower than 47 of the 50 states, even as California has ascended to fifth on that leaderboard. At about 30 daily infections for every 100,000 residents in the past week, the infection rate in San Francisco is also about one-third that of the state and lower than all of its Bay Area neighbors besides Marin County. But transmission continues to rise nonetheless, if slightly slower than the immediate post-Thanksgiving surge. Cases have increased 27% just in the past week, Colfax said.
“We could be at a key inflection point,” Colfax said. “An increase over this next holiday period could put us over the edge into a truly catastrophic situation. We cannot afford a further increase in cases, especially an increase like we saw during Thanksgiving.”
Nearly a third of San Francisco’s intensive care units are still available, according to the city’s data, despite ICU capacity falling to 13.1% across the region. That is substantially more than in Santa Clara, San Mateo or Marin counties, where few beds remain available. Statewide, ICU capacity has dwindled to 3%, with almost no beds available in Southern California or the San Joaquin Valley.
However, San Francisco hospitals have accepted one transfer patient from within the Bay Area but have not taken on additional patients from outside the region, like they did during the spring and summer, Colfax said.
Hospitalizations won’t hit their peak until at least seven to 10 days after cases begin to decline, Colfax said. There are 150 patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the city — its most of the pandemic — and that number is expected to exceed 200 “in the next couple weeks;” it could go even higher if the new restrictions don’t curb transmission.
“Given the continued rise in cases, we expect our ICU and acute care beds will continue to fill rapidly with sick patients,” Colfax said. But San Francisco can avoid the worst of the third wave if its residents renew their vigor for health protocols, he continued. “To make this reality, we must avoid a Christmas and New Year’s increase, and we need your help in doing that.”
Those entering the city from outside the region will be mandated to quarantine for 10 days, similar to a recent order in Santa Clara County, which also adopted the new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That includes returning residents, people moving to San Francisco, those who work in San Francisco and visitors, unless specifically exempted by the order.
Under the new order, Bay Area residents are still free to travel between its 10 counties without restriction, though officials have discouraged nonessential trips. A number of professions are also exempt from the order: medical professionals, first responders, official government business and essential infrastructure work, as is anybody passing through San Francisco for less than 24 hours.
Any violation of the mandatory quarantine qualifies as a misdemeanor offense. It takes effect at the stroke of midnight Friday and will remain in place through at least Jan. 4.
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