San Franciscos New Pandemic Protocol
Though San Francisco's reopening status isn't perfect in the latest update on Tuesday, City health officials say that we have moved too fast and cut off a very concerning rate of spread of the Virus with new restrictions on indoor activities. When the clock hits at 12:01 am on Saturday, Restaurants will no longer be allowed to operate at those times. Indoor bars will no longer be available to serve drinks or meals. Mayor London Breed and Public health Director Dr. Grant ColFax announced on Tuesday.
Additionally, Gyms and Movie theatres will have to cut their capacity, and further school openings will be limited to elementary and middle schoolers. We've been in this situation for far too long, and now people are tired of it, so people have gotten self-satisfied with the outcomes, and as a result, we see an uptick. And as a result of that uptick or Corona Cases. It has forced our city to make some challenging hard decisions. The reopening rollback comes less than two weeks after city leaders put a hold on plans to expand indoor capacity at many businesses, including restaurants, but stopped short of imposing additional restrictions.
In the time since, however, cases of COVID-19 in the city have only continued to increase. In addition to the indoor dining restrictions, capacity at gyms and movie theatres will be reduced to 25%, and no high schools that are not already open will be permitted to move forward. Colfax, the city's top health official, said the spread rate was higher now than at the same point during the surge this summer. It is also occurring at higher rates in wealthier neighbourhoods that had not previously been as impacted. This suggests a much broader virus transmission and has the potential to be explosive. It is entirely plausible we face a situation where our healthcare system becomes overwhelmed and reverses the current progress we've made. If transmission continues at the current trajectory. San Francisco could face 300 cases per day by the end of December, which would be more than twice as many as any previous pandemic point.
As of Monday, San Francisco was averaging about 82 cases per day, a per-capita rate of about 9.3/100K, more than double the number it was two weeks ago, according to data that has surged. Colfax said the city wanted to avoid any other lockdowns, including a potential shelter-in-place order over the holidays, which is why it was implementing these steps now. However, officials were not blind to harm done to businesses that invested in opening indoors only to be shut down. Breed called the decision London Breed has said "heartbreaking but necessary." When we make these decisions, we do not take them lightly. We look at the science. We look at the data. We think about every single restaurant and every single school and every single business that has not collected any revenue whatsoever since this pandemic began.
We understand the challenges that exist. However, we are in a difficult situation or who knows when the pandemic will cease. We need to be mindful and think of innovative ways to stay 6 ft apart and wear masks all the time. In these challenging times, we need to think about other people and not just ourselves. Even though Influencers are Partying and Not Following proper protocols during the pandemic, it is very concern that these things happened.
