Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Rules Committee 20240713

Welcome to the april 6, 2020 meeting of the rules committee. Im supervisor hillary ronen, chair of the committee. Im joined on this Video Conference with rules Committee Vice chair supervisor katherine stefani. Our clerk today is victor young and id like to thank sfgovtv for staffing this meeting. Do you have any announcements . Yes. Due to the covid19 healthy emergency and to protect board members, City Employees and the public, the board of supervisors litingive chamber and Committee Room are closed. However, members will be participating in the meeting remotedly as in the same extent as if they were physically comment. Physically present. We are streaming numbers across the screen. Each speaker will be allowed two minutes to speak. Commentses or opportunities to speak during the Public Comment period are available via phone, by calling 8882045984. Access code 3501008 and then press pound and dial one again. Press 0 and 1 to be added to the queue. You will be lined up in the system in order you dial 1 and 0 while you are waiting t system will be silent. The system will notify you when you are in line and waiting. All callers will remain on mute until the line is open. Everyone must account for the time delay and speaking discrepancies between live coverage and streaming. Al term actively, you may submit Public Comment, email me at victor. Young sfgov. Org. If you submit via email, it will be included in the file as part of the matter. Comments may be sent to city hall, 1 dr. Carlton b. Goodlett place, San Francisco, california. That completes my comments. Thank you so much, mr. Clerk. Can you please read item number one . Item number one is an emergency ordinance to temporarily require private employers with 500 or more employees to provide Public Health emergency leave during the Public Health emergency related to covid19. Thank you so much. This is supervisor mars item. Would you like to introduce the item, supervisor mar . Yes. Thank you so much, chair ronen, for allowing us to hear this item today. An emergency ordinance before us is in response to a true emergency. The lack of sufficient paid leave for workers to follow our Public Health order to weather this crisis. While there is no Silver Bullet to our health and humanitarian emergency, this measure will give an additional twoweek paid leave to hundreds of thousands of san franciscans and make a meaningful difference to countless people trying to take care of themselves and their family and make ends meet. Congress took action to expand paid leave for workers but they left out more than 50 of our workforce by excepting the largest employer. This is inexcusable. So, where our federal government is falling short, im taking immediate Emergency Action to close the gap here in San Francisco. With this emergency measure, employees of private companies will be able to immediately access additional weeks of paid leave, closing the major loophole in the federal legislation in making sure that in health emergencies, workers are able to take time off take the time off that they need for themselves and their families. When sick people have to choose between their livelihoods or incomes, we are all worse off. When parents have to choose between a paycheck or staying home with their kids whose school is closed, were all worse off. San francisco led the nation when we adopted our paid sick leave ordinance in 2006. In this time of crisis, San Francisco must lead again in supporting our workers. Over the last two week, my office has worked with labor leaders and business stakeholders to strengthen this proposal. Around today ill be proposing a series of amendments for clarity and to ensure this measure is as inclusive and impactful as possible. I wanded to briefly go over what the ordinance is right now and summarize the key provision. First, what the ordinance does. It wont immediately give an additional two weeks of paid leave to any San Francisco employee of a private company with 500 or more employees. Who it covers every single s. F. Employee of a private company with 500plus employees. Even if youre furloughed and even if you are the employee in San Francisco, even if you started working a month before shelter in place, even if you are a temp worker, even if you dont live in San Francisco, but you work here. Employers and Health Care Providers are allowed to opt out. However, were amending it to especially sure Health Care Providers are given additional paid leave if they get sick or have to get quarantined. And all workers are presumed to be employees and covered until and unless then their employer demonstrates they are an independent contractor. Now who this emergency ordinance does not cover people who are unemployed, Public Employees and theyre covered bier our executive action, private employees of companies with fewer than 500 employees and theyre covered by the federal law, people who do not work in San Francisco and independent contractors. And when employees can use their immediate leave. If you cant work because theres shelter in place, if you have to stay home to take care of a family member, if its replaced with work and a you cant work remotely, if you are a member of a vulnerable population, if youre showing symptoms and if your doctor recommends you not work. So, again, i presented or today im presenting some set of amendments and there are seven different amendments and theyre probably i believe you received a copy of the amended emergency ordinance and im going to summarize this up in amendments right now. Number one, provide Public Health emergency leave to Health Care Providers when theyre subject to quarantine or sick or otherwise do not meet c. D. C. Returntowork guidelines. In number two, ex. Expand uses of the leave for vulnerable populations including 60 or older. Number three that benefits Like Health Care cant be taken away while employees are on leave. Number four, require employer notice in english, spanish, chinese and any other language spoken by 5 or more of the workforce. Number five, as information on local, state and federal resources to the notice language that theyll draft. Number six, matches the Health Care Provider definition to provider regulation. And number seven, additional paid leave voluntarily provided during the emergency toward this new requirement if the composition offered meets the standard. You know, i would like to request that deputy City Attorney anne pearson provide her assessment of these amendments and whether any of these are substantive and would require continuance before the Committee Takes action. Good morning. Can you all hear me . Yes. Thanks. So ive had a chance to review all of the amendments that supervisor mar just described and the first one on his list is one that is substantive and that is the amendment that would require Health Care Employers of Health Care Providers to provide them with leave under some limited circumstances. The other ones are not substantive and would not require a continuance today. Thank you. Supervisor mar, do you want to split the file and move forward the portion thats not substantive and we can continue the other just to get this moving as quickly as possible or just move them all at the same time . Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, deputy City Attorney pearson and chair ronen. Yes, i in answer to your question, chair, i would like to i will be making a motion to duplicate the file so we can move the nonsubstantive amendments forward as the Committee Records to the full board hopefully for vote and adoption tomorrow and then we can move the substantive amendment forward or continue it as we will need to but then move that forward hopefully a week later. I would say we want to ensure that our Health Care Providers working on the frontlines have paid leave. So, thats important. But we dont want to hold that the overall important provisions of the ordinance while we have to continue that amendment. That makes perfect sense. I just wanted to thank you so much for bringing this forward, supervisor mar. Its pretty outrageous that the Congress Left out of the law the employers that most can afford to provide this benefit. They are the biggest employers making the most money in this society and perhaps their donors to the Congress Members who left them out and that is why they got a break when the smaller employers didnt. We are all in this together. We are all sacrificing. We have to all sacrifice to make sure that everyone [inaudible] and im so grateful for you bringing this forward and if i could be added as a sponsor, i would appreciate that. Supervisor stefani, do you have any comments . Yes, thank you, supervisor ronen and i want to associate myself with your comments. I do agree on the importance and i want to thank supervisor mar for bringing this legislation forward to address the members of our workforce struggling during these difficult times. It is so important that we do everything that we can to protect the working people who faced this crisis. And just, you know, when we think about what happened over a month ago, mayor breed directed our residents to shelter in place earlier than almost any other municipality in the United States. Im grateful to her and our neighboring bay area counties for taking Decisive Action to save lives. And in doing so, when that order went into place, a number of businesses stepped up to provide extra paid time off and income security to their employees. Really recognizing that there were challenging times ahead and i want to thank them and system of them are employers that had more than 500 employees so as this situation involves and this legislation has come to us quickly, which again were reacting quickly and i thank you again for that, supervisor mar, i want to make sure were not being punitive to those companies that have gone above and beyond to support their workers and my hope is that, as we implement this law, wi dont punish those and i know that is not your intention, supervisor mar, i just want to call out the fact that there are precise steps in this ordinance and the legislation has specific requirements to add sick leave that may add up with some of the things that employers with 500 or more have done. For example, when an employer created a fund to pay employees who arent working. I just want to make sure that we dont punish those who have stood up for their employees and even if the actions they have taken dont exactly fit the legislation today. I do plan to be supportive, of course, of this legislation. But just wanted to call that out. And make sure as we move forward, we dont punish those good actors because thankfully there are some because it does restore our faith in humanity when we see Companies Taking care of their employees, as they should. Thank you again and i do plan to support this today. Supervisor . We will now open up this item to Public Comment. Members of public online, please press 1 and then 0 to be added to the queue to speak. You have four questions remaining. Hello, im an organizer with sviu, United Service workers west. We are an organization of almost 10,000 essential workers in San Francisco. Our members help to carry essential operations, including drugstores and banks and the San Francisco international airport. Workers should not be forced to come to work sick, ever. Especially at this time. We support the Emergency Paid Sick leave for workers and we also encourage the board to use its authority to ensure that they pass this immediately and introduce language to cover s. F. O. Airport workers next. Work ers should not have to choose between taking care of themselves, getting a paycheck and protecting their families. Thank you. You have four questions remaining. Thank you. Next speaker. Caller yes. Im a member of the California Faculty Association at San Francisco state and im very appreciative of this legislation. I want to say that im inundated we mails from students who are really, really desperate so this is essential to students. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker . You have two questions remaining. Caller ok. [inaudible]. Sorry. Are you still there on the phone . Now youre able to speak. Caller right now . Yes. Caller i can speak now . Yes. Caller they can hear me now . Yes. Caller ok. I work for a retail store and i would like the see if you can help us out with the bill so we can afford it to stay as [inaudible] and we can get paid when were not working. Because we have a lot of needs, medical and that is why we really should not be working outside. And people who are sick, too. I am 63 years old and have diabetes and im high risk to be working. Because i work in the retail. And i work with the public. With the customer. [inaudible]. I feel like we dont have to [inaudible] help us out. Thank you. My number is 415800[inaudible] 0008. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. You have two questions remaining. Caller hi, this is collan, im the executive director at the [inaudible] of justice and this is really one of the defining workers rights issues of our time which is that we see, you know, our Workers Health is impacting all of us and, you know, weve had the leadership of being the first city in the country to pass paid sick leave and it is our time to lead again bypassing this Health Emergency leave and really rising to this moment. So much of you as supervisors really helped us, you know, take incredible action to stop this pandemic and being the first county to be in shelter in place. Its so important. And now we have another chance, i think that is key to preserve the Public Health by having a Public Health emergency leave. Some of these difficult moments that people are testing, too. But one thing that i do take away as a bit of hope is that folks are realising how much of our health is linked with others around us. Were only as healthy as our neighbor, as our neighbors neighbor. Afternoon some of the people have come together to take care of each other in this moment. And this Public Health emergency were taking care of some of the most vulnerable workers who are actually serving the public every day. It is an important step. I hope you take that tomorrow. Thanks. Thank you so much. Any other speakers . You have two questions remaining. Next speaker, please. Caller this is emily abraham. From the San Francisco chamber of commerce. On behalf of the San Francisco chamber of commerce, i would like to note that we are proudly supportive of this resolution. We sincerely thank supervisor mar to work with his efforts to work with the San Francisco chamber of commerce and offering clarifications on specifics of the ordinance and we thank supervisor stefani for her support and we appreciate the clarity around the hours and voluntary paid leave credit [inaudible] mandate. And also clarification that [inaudible] will not occur and compensation for companies that however unlimited leave qualify. Thank you for your support and efforts during this Public Health crisis. Thank you. Next speaker, please. You have one question remaining. Hello, my name is chris wright. Im the executive director of the committee on jobs and association that represent the citys largest private sector employers. Much of [inaudible] has been focused on our citys Small Businesses who are struggling. That said, every employer is suffering in this global catastrophe and each face serious threats of [inaudible]. Since the mayors stay in place order, many of our members have been closed to outright stop operations many of our own members are covered by government mandate and subsidy [inaudible]. The city clearly recognized that additional Employee Benefits are credited to their obligations under this new measure. Prohibiting businesses from offsetting existing benefits would effectively penalizing employers with general policis in place. Additionally the requirement for changing pay stubbs [inaudible] in light of the leave of this ordinance. And prior to the alleged [inaudible] of reasonable, timely and likely more effective notice, including electronic notice to their eligible employees. I want to echo the other concerns raised by the chamber of commerce letter come friday afternoon. The main issues are complex and they deal with multilayers. As such, we respectfully act for an additional week to review the language and to improve the [inaudible] clarity. Were commited to the goals of the legislation to working with the sponsors to achieve that, which is why wed like to make sure that it is done right. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you very much. Any other speaker . You have one question remaining. Caller hi. Good morning. My name is angelica. Im with [inaudible] south of Community Action network. We want to thank supervisor mar for moving forward with this legislation and really hope that the committee will move this forward. Its a very important legislation. As we take care of all the workers in San Francisco this legislation this cover 200,000 workers in San Francisco and we really think this legislation is much needed. Thank you. Thank you. Again, other speakers . You have zero questions remaining. Thank you for all the public speakers and if there are no other speakers in line, we will close Public Comment. Im making sure there are no other speakers. Ok. Thank you. Mr. Clerk, can you please have a role roll call vote. Supervisor mar made a motion to look at the file. I believe theres no objection to that motion. Is that true . Actually, im sorry, chair ronen. I actually had it is a little complicated what im proposing to do here. Theres actually five motions that i want to make. Got it. Sorry. Go ahead. Ok. Actually, before i do that t i did want to acknowledge the comment by supervisor stefani and also that were reinforced by chris wright from the committee on [inaudible]. Acknowledging the fact that Many Employers in San Francisco have already stepped up and voluntarily provided additional paid leave to their employees in this time of crisis. So that certainly has happened. And we definitely dome want to penalize employers that have already stepped up so that is why one of the amendments that is included today is making sure that those employers get credit for the additional paid leave that theyve already voluntarily provided towards the 80 hours that is required under the ordinance, as long as the paid leave that has been provided is comparable to whats specified in the ordinance and i wanted to acknowledge the different folks weve worked on in this important legislation. Starting with deputy City Attorney matt pearson and Matt Goldberg as well as our early cosponsor, supervisor haney, jobs of justice San Francisco, the San Francisco labor council, sieu, United Service workers west and Legal Aid Network and San Francisco chamber of commerce. Again, i have a series of motions that id like to make that will allow us to move the nonsubstantive amendments to ward as soon as possible and then also come deal with the would be substantive amendment regarding allowing Health Care Providers to ask that Public Health emergency leave, when theyre quarantined or sick. So, the first motion is id like to move that to adopt the amendment before us, except for references to 5b included therein. Can you please take a roll call vote on that motion . On the motion to amend . Supervisor stefani. Aye. Stefani, aye. Supervisor mar . Aye. Mar, aye. Chair ronen. Aye. Motion passs to amend the ordinance. And i move to duplicate the file as amended. I need to send the original file as amended as a Committee Report to the april 7 meeting of the board. Roll call . On the motion to refer to the board of Committee Report . Supervisor stefani. Aye. Stefani, aye. Supervisor mar. Chair ronen. Aye. The motion passes. And next, i would like to move to amend the duplicated file with the remaining amendments that references to 5c. We need a role call for that. Yes. That motion to amend. Supervisor stefani. [roll call] the motion to amend has passed. And then finally i move to continue the duplicated file as further amended to the monday, april 13 meeting of the rules committee. Roll call. On that motion, supervisor stefani. Aye. [roll call] those are the five motions you wanted to make, correct . Correct. Thank you so much. So mr. Cook, are there any other items on todays agenda . Before i state, id like to summarize that the original motion has been amended and refered to the board as a Committee Report. The duplicated file has been continued to the april 13 meeting and that completes the agenda for today. Thank you so much. Then the meeting is adjourned. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. Thanks. Were here to raise awareness and money and fork for a good accuse. We have this incredible gift probably the widest range of restaurant and count ii destines in any district in the city right here in the mission intricate why dont we capture that to support the mission youths going to college thats for the food for thought. We didnt have a signature font for our orientation thats a 40yearold organization. Mission graduates have helped me to develop special as an individual theyve helped me figure out and provide the tools for me that i need i feel successful in life their core above emission and goal is in line with our values. The ferraris yes, we made 48 thousand they were on top of that its a nobrainer for us. Were in and fifth year and be able to expand out and tonight is your ungrammatical truck food for thought. Food truck for thought is an opportunity to eat from a variety of different vendor that are supporting the mission graduates by coming and representing at the parks were giving a prude of our to give people the opportunity to get an education. People come back and can you tell me and enjoy our food. All the vendor are xooment a portion of their precedes the money is going back in whats the best thing to do in terms of moving the needle for the folks we thought Higher Education is the tool to move young people. Im also a College Student i go to berkley and 90 percent of our folks are staying in college thats 40 percent hire than the afternoon. Im politically to clemdz and ucla. Just knowing were giving back to the community. Especially the Spanish Speaking population it hits home. People get hungry why not eat and give roughly five years, i was working as a high school teacher, and i decided to take my students on a surfing field trip. The light bulb went off in my head, and i realized i could do much more for my students taking them surfing than i could as their classroom teacher, and that is when the idea for the city surf project was born. Working with kids in the ocean that arent familiar with this space is really special because youre dealing with a lot of fear and apprehension but at the same time, a lot of excitement. When i first did it, i was, like, really scared, but then, i did it again, and i liked it. Well get a group of kids who have just never been to the beach, are terrified of the idea, who dont like the beach. Its too cold out, and its those kid that are impossible to get back out of the water at the end of the day. Over the last few years, i think weve had at least 40 of our students participate in the city surf project. Surfing helped me with, like, how to swim. Weve start off with about two to four sessions in the pool before actually going out and surfing. Swimming at the pool just helps us with, like, being, like, comfortable in the water and being calm and not being all not being anxious. So when we started the city surf project, one of the things we did was to say hey, this is the way to earn your p. E. Credits. Just getting kids to go try it was one of our initial challenges for the first year or two. But now that weve been doing it three or four years, we have a group of kids thats consistent, and the word has spread, that its super fun, that you learn about the ocean. Starting in the morning, you know, i get the vehicles ready, and then, i get all the gear together, and then, i drive and go get the kids, and we take them to a local beach. We usually go to linda mar, and then occasionally ocean beach. We once did a special trip. We were in capitola last year, and it was really fun. We get in a circle and group stretch, and we talk about specific safety for the day, and then, we go down to the water. Once we go to the beach, i dont want to go home. I cant change my circumstances at home, but i can change the way i approach them. Our program has definitely been a way for our students to find community and build friends. I dont really talk to friends, so i guess when i started doing city surf, i started to, like, get to know people more than i did before, and people that i didnt think id like, like, ended up being my best friends. Its a group sport the way we do it, and with, like, close camaraderie, but everybodys doing it for themselves. Its great, surfing around, finding new people and making new friendships with people throughout surfing. It can be highly developmental for students to have this time where they can learn a lot about themselves while negotiating the waves. I feel significantly, like, calmer. It definitely helps if im, like, feeling really stressed or, like, feeling really anxious about surfing, and i go surfing, and then, i just feel, like, im going to be okay. It gives them resiliency skills and helps them build selfconfidence. And with that, they can use that in other parts of their lives. I went to bring amy family o the beach and tell them what i did. I saw kids open up in the ocean, and i got to see them connect with other students, and i got to see them fail, you know, and get up and get back on the board and experience success, and really enjoy themselves and make a connection to nature at the same time. For some kids that are, like, resistant to, like, being in a Mentorship Program like this, its they want to surf, and then later, theyll find out that theyve, like, made this community connection. I think they provided level playing fields for kids to be themselves in an open environment. For kids to feel like i can go for it and take a chance that i might not have been willing to do on my own is really special. We go on 150 surf outings a year. Thats yearround programming. Weve seen a tremendous amount of youth face their fears through surfing, and that has translated to growth in other facets of their lives. I just think the biggest thing is, like, that they feel like that they have something that is really cool, that theyre engaged in, and that we, like, care about them and how theyre doing, like, in general. What i like best is they really care about me, like, im not alone, and i have a group of people that i can go to, and, also, surfing is fun. Were creating surfers, and were changing the face of surfing. The feeling is definitely akin to being on a roller coaster. Its definitely faster than i think you expect it to be, but its definitely fun. It leaves you feeling really, really positive about what that kids going to go out and do. I think its really magical almost. At least it was for me. It was really exciting when i caught my first wave. I felt like i was, like it was, like, magical, really. When they catch that first wave, and their first lights up, you know their face lights up, you know you have them hooked. I was on top of the world. Its amazing. I felt like i was on top of the world even though i was probably going two miles an hour. It was, like, the scariest thing id ever done, and i think it was when i got hooked on surfing after mayor breed today i am joined by the department of Public Health in place of doctor grant colfax. We have doctor Susan Phillips. We are also joined by the director of the Department Emergency management as well as our police chief bill scott and from the Homeless Services agency we have Abigail Stewart. Thank you for joining you today. I just want to start by saying that i know that the last few weeks have been very challenging for families, especially parents with children who are no longer in school, and also especially kids who have not been able to hang out with their friends and do the things that, of course, kids love to do. I know this has been very challenging for all of us, and especially for families as you juggle to work at home, home school your children, and deal with the difficulties that we know have happened over the past couple of weeks. More porely, what more importantly, what we are going to deal with over the next month to two months of staying at home and trying to abide by the order that has been issued. We know that it is important that while children are at home that they continue to access learning. For some, having access to a laptop and internet is a luxury that other kids may not have. We also know that the School District has been working really hard to implement policies around Distance Learning that they are interested in launching within a weeks time. What we have done in partnership with the School District and two nonprofit organizations, education superhighway and 1 million project foundation, we are working together with them to provide free wifi or superspots in the areas where we know that they are needed the most, including in our Public Housing sites, single room occupancy buildings, Community Centers and neighborhood locations where student lack connection to the internet. I want to also express my appreciation to the department of telecommunications that the department has been working with several Public Housing sites. We know at least in six Public Housing sites there is access to Free Internet including bayviewhunters point and western addition. In sunnydale and other locations where we have large populations of children who may not have access to the internet, this is going to be critical to ensure that they have the support they need. The School District has been able to purchase over 4,000 laptops, and we are currently working with can School District to secure an additional 4,000 or so laptops to support those students who may not have the devices they need at home for the plans to launch Distance Learning. We really want to thank the tamo bravo. A private equity firm which provided 2 million to the School District to help with this effort. This donation along with others will ensure real equity, and will make sure that every kid in our School System has access to highquality Internet Service as well as laptops that they need with the tools that they need so that everyone has access to learn during this very difficult time as we know it. It is really amazing to see the Community Come together, and so many people go out of the way to provide this level of resources that are instrumental to all children in San Francisco having access to tools to learn. If you are interested in continuing to help in that effort, please feel free to reach out to us. I want to talk a little bit about the Small Business and Economic Recovery Task force that was announced yesterday. I want to thank the president of the board of supervisors, norman yee, as well as the four cochairs of the Recovery Task force. The treasure, executive director of the San Francisco chamber of commerce and the director of the San Francisco labor council. We know that the challenges that we are facing now as it relates to Public Health, that our economy will be tremendously impacted. As we struggle to provide resources to our Small Businesses and people who have lost their jobs, we also know that after this is over because it will come a time where this will be over, that it is going to be necessary that we have a plan on how we as a city will recover. The fact is we have all seen those very grim numbers released this week by the Controllers Office that estimate we anticipate a 1. 1 to 1. 7 billion budget deficit over the next two years. That is just early reports based on what we are seeing. We know this is going to be very difficult for all of us. A lot of difficult decisions around our current and future budgets will need to be made. Our goal is to do everything we can to support our businesses in San Francisco, our city work force, but it will be difficult and there will be difficult decisions to be made. As a result we brought together folks from labor, the Business Community and elected leaders responsible for the finances of the city in order to develop a longterm plan of recovery so that we can hit the ground running on day one. We know there are things we need to do now, and we are focused on trying in collaboration with the support that we are getting, hopefully, from the state and federal government, we know there are other needs. Yesterday we announced a fund to provide additional 10 million to support our Small Businesses where Small Businesses can request up to a 50,000 no interest loan with a flexible repayment schedule. We added additional moneys to the Grant Program for Small Businesses as well. We know that in the stimulus package provided by the federal government there will be resources for Small Businesses. We also know that there is a lot of uncertainty, and we want to make sure we are providing support and resources necessary to support our Small Business community and also to support our work force. If you are a Small Business or if you are an individual who has financial needs, please visit our website oewd. Org. There is a lot of resources that are provided with clarity around what programs could be made available. We also know that the governor, as i mentioned before, has extended the eligibility requirements for those who can apply for unemployment insurance. We want to encourage as many people as possible to apply. We want to make sure that people have access to resources. If you have any questions or concerns or you need access to resources, please visit oe oewd. Org. I want to talk a little bit about the announcement made yesterday by our county Health Officers in the bay area with a strong recommendation that people who are going out of their homes wear masks. I want to be clear that, number one, this is a recommendation from our county Health Officers, and, number two, this does not take the place of physical distancing. We want to make sure people understand that the policy of social distancing has been put into place as a way to prevent the virus from spreading. This is an additional precaution that is necessary to help continue to flatten the curve as we continue to talk about what is necessary to do that, additional recommendations will come into play. I also want to be clear, and dr. Phillips will talk about this later, it is not necessary if you are not working in a hospital with patients who possibly have the virus, then there is no need for you to wear an n95 mask. We want be to reserve those for healthcare workers. Please continue to follow our orders around social distancing and please continue to do everything you can to keep you and your families safe. The other thing i would like to talk about today as part of our Public Health response, we have been focused from the very beginning on securing hotels in our city. I want to be clear that our priority has to be Public Health and so the system that we developed for acquiring hotel rooms has everything to do with that. We had a number of people who were in our hospitals who were in hospital beds that didnt need to be in hospital beds. With that particular population of those who had the virus who do not need hospital beds and who do not have a home to go to or who live in congregate setting thes, we through the Hotel Program have provided hotel rooms to make sure that they are isolated from other members of the public for the recommended time of two weeks. Then the next step is to provide them access to one of our expanded Shelter Systems like the one open in moscone west. The goal is to deal with Public Health and make sure our hospitals are not inundated with people who dont need to be in the hospital because we need to preserve those beds for people who are really, really sick. There are people who have those symptoms and they are not in need of a hospital bed, but for those who are in need of one, we have got to keep our system clear to make sure they have access to one. In the past when trent rhorer provided updates about the categories of people that will receive hotel rooms, i want to just reiterate, our goal is to serve Public Health and to provide access to hotel rooms for those who dont need to be hospitalized but have been tested positive with covid19. We also have plans to provide hotel rooms for our elderly Homeless Population, those over 60, those who have underlying conditions and those who are in our shelter system now so that people are able so that we are able to practice social distancing in the shelter system now. The goal is to really focus on this particular population, and that is exactly what we are doing. We want to be clear hotel rooms will be provided to our First Responders, our healthcare workers who have contracted covid19 or who do not want to go home in fear of transmitting covid19 to members of their families. That is where we are as it relates to the hotel rooms. The rooms that we have secured so far have supported those folks, and i know that many of you here, dr. Colfax talked about the surge and what is coming. I just want to remind everyone because people wonder when is it . What is going on . What surge . What are you talking about . I want to remind people when we declared a state of emergency in february, on february 25 of this year, not one person was diagnosed with the coronavirus in San Francisco today we are at 497 people with seven deaths. I know it is hard to trust the information we are providing when you cant necessarily see it, and what i want to say is it is important that you trust the decisions that we are making as to how we manage this Public Healthcare crisis. We have some of the best healthcare experts anywhere in the world right here in San Francisco. U. C. S. F. , c. P. M. C. , San Francisco general is world renowned for so many things, especially around trauma and saving lives. U. C. S. F. Institutions and research and work they do is world renowned. We are working together to make sure that we have a system to address what we know, sadly, will be a situation where possibly all of our beds could be occupied, which could be very challenging to serve people in need of a bed. This is where our hotels will be very strumental. If someone does not need to be in a hospital bed and they are homeless, the opportunity to provide them with a bed in a hotel is so critical to their recovery and limiting their ability to spread it to other people, and it is important to making that bed available for someone who really is in need. We are focused on what is necessary to save lives. We know that there are a lot of frustration and emotion attached to what we know is a real homeless problem in our city. We are not going to be able to solve our homeless problem in San Francisco with this crisis. We cannot deviate from what information we have and what systems we are putting in place in order to address this challenge and really truly flatten the curve. This is our ultimate goal, and we are busy focusing on exactly that and doing everything we can to support the most vulnerable Homeless Population that is sleeping on the streets now. In fact, our goal is to really target those who are over 60 and those who have underlying conditions who are not yet in the shelter system. The ability to provide sufficient capacity for the expanded shelter bed programs, hotels, food, cleaning, management, oversight, work, resources, wraparound support services, all that we have to do to address this issue is a very challenging thing to do when many of the folks that we have working in this field are already still showing up to work and working very hard to keep our existing programs running. We have to also protect them. This is more complicated than opening up every hotel room in San Francisco and making it available. If that were possible we would do it in a heartbeat. There are a lot of other things that come with doing this right. Ultimately our goal is to focus on our Public Health experts and recommendations there and to do this in a way that truly provides the help and the support that we need to those who are most vulnerable to get through this. I want to thank you all again for your understanding and your patience as we grapple with these challenges. I also want to say as the weekend approaches, today is friday, i think it is going to run. The sun is out. I just want to remind people how important it is to follow the directive. We are in week two of this stay at home order, and we know that it is not easy when you are in line at the Grocery Stores, follow the social distancing order. When you are out at a park or Walking Around your neighborhood, please continue to follow the social distancing order. This is so critical to the success of our city. When you think about what is happening in San Francisco and compare it to places like new york, people are the numbers in new york, sadly, skyrocketed out of control. The United States have surpassed other countries in the world, and here in San Francisco we have been able to really, i think, do a tremendous job in maintaining numbers that people thought would be completely out of control at this time. Yes, it will get worse before it gets better. Yes, we will have challenges ahead. The reason why everyone is praising San Francisco for our swift action in closing down the city and looking at the numbers and what is happens is because everyone here knew how important it was to follow the instructions and everyone come dated the request for the most part in our city. That is going to get us through and make us successful as a city. That is going to keep us safe because we know that when we come together and we work to follow the instructions provided that we will get through this. The last thing i want to say before i ask Susan Phillips to come up is, you know, put positivity out into the world. This situation is like nothing that i think anyone alive today has ever experienced in their lifetime. It can be scary for some people, especially people who are struggling financially and have a lot of uncertainty about their future. There is a lot of anxiety, frustration, fear. There is a lot of things that are going on in various peoples lives and households, and what i think is important is that when we are going through all of this, yes, there is work that needs to be done and the people at the Emergency Operations are working every single day to do that work to make things better for all of us, but at the same time we need to continue to put out that positive energy, to put out that love and goodness in the world. An example is exactly what we know some neighbors gather and they open their windows or come outside to the front of their places at, i think, 7 00, they clap and thank the healthcare workers. We saw on the cell force tower there was clapping to help the healthcare workers. We lit up city hall in blue to thank the health care workers. If we continue to put out positive energy and love and feeling of togetherness and comfort, that is going to help us through because we can drown out all of the negativity, all of the hate, other stuff that divides us by focusing on what matters. This really has put so many things into perspective even for me and how short life can be, how precious it is that we are all here today, and what we can do with our voices, our commitment, our passion. How we can really demonstrate it by example and how we can help others get through it. I want to bring up the note that i mentioned before that i received from a neighbor that just basically said here is my cell phone number, my email address. If you need someone to run errands, Grocery Store run or pharmacy or someone to talk to, i am here. That means a lot to someone who may not have received a visitor this whole time. I just want to remind us to be good to each other. The kindness of so many of you has gone a long way and really helped people get through it because when i say we will get through it together, we will get through it together when we support and uplift one another. That is exactly what we need to do as time goes on because this is going to get even harder, and the only way to get through this is by trying to focus on supporting each other, uplifting each other and just really trying to push for more positive outlook on things because there will be a time that we will wake up and life will be back to what we know and love. At this time i would like to ask from the department of Public Health, filling in for doctor grant colfax, we have doctor Susan Phillips. Good morning morning. I am Deputy Health officer San Francisco. Thank you, mayor breed. I would like to update you on our ongoing work to respond to coronavirus and protect our community. Todays there are 497 San Francisco residents with confirmed cases of coronavirus. Six are in hospitals across the city and half of these are in i c. U. S. Sadly, seven san franciscans died from the disease. I would like to send condolences to families and friends. As we continue to fight the pandemic, i would like to remind you that our Top Priorities remain reducing the spread of the virus in the community, protecting vulnerable populations, healthcare and First Responders, preparing Health System for an expected surge of hospital patients and expanding testing capabilities. In all of this work we see continuously to do better as we incorporate the latest science, data and facts. We have known from the start this this is a rapidly evolvingation and that continues to be true. We are working quickly to integrate new information and adjust recommendations accordingly so we are providing the best most uptodate information and advice that we can. The issues of mask and face coverings is a good example. Yesterday bay area Health Officers joined to recommend members of the public cover their mouthsanos when mouth and nose when they go outside. Cloth face coverings combined with physical distance and hand washing may prevent additional transmission of the coronavirus. The state Health Department issued new guidance this week as well. Key point is this. If you cover your face, you are protecting other people around you. We know people may be contagious before they have symptoms or people with coronavirus could get only mildly sick. It could be you or me. Covering your mouth is a good way to be a Good Neighbor and community member. This is not a substitute for physical distancing, staying at home and washing our hands. These are the mainstays. It is an additional tool and one to use. I also want to stress medical masks such as isolation or n95 masks are in very short supply and must be reserve would for healthcare and First Responders. Face covering can be a towel, scarf, anything to absorb droplets is fine. This is new advice. There will be questions and frequently asked questions on sfgov. Org and those will be updated. Update on laguna honda. We are concerned about an outbreak. We are continuing to do everything we can to protect the health of residents and staff there. We gathered some of the best minds to help prevent the spread of this virus. We have some of the experts at u. C. S. F. And expanding to work with the California Department of health and with experts around the country. We also know longterm care centers are at great risk. If we can make progress here, it will benefit people in other places. Experts from the California Department of Public Health and u. S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention are on site at at laguna honda are working closely with us advising how we should do Contact Tracing investigations and giving us recommendations for further improved preparedness Going Forward. We are all working together on the preparedness and Response Plan for the longterm care facilities in San Francisco. I also want to give you an update as of today laguna honda has 12 confirmed cases of coronavirus. 10 are among staff and two are residents. Of the staff, seven are in patient care positions and three have not. As we speak the California Department of Public Health and centers for Disease Control are on site helping us with Contact Tracing and investigations. To date 94 patients have been tested throughout the hospital. To date 278 Staff Members have been tested. Either by dph or their own provider. Every staff member on the two units where staff have been sick have been tested. Every patient where there was a sick patient has been tested. We are working with cdc to identify and test those that are most concerned may have had exposure to coronavirus. Why dont we test everyone on campus . We must prioritize the clinical decisions and resources. First to be tested will be those showing symptoms or who have been exposed to a person with coronavirus. The contract tracings will tell us who these people are and drive further action and decision making. We are committed to keeping you all informed. Testing has been taking places every day this week. It has taken place on the four south among patients with symptoms or identified having risk of exposure. Cdc advices about additional tests on campus. We will act on those recommendations. We have talked at the meetings, dr. Colfax and mayor breed kept you informed about testing supplies. If we had unlimited supplies we could do more tests. We want our testing to go by science. We have taken steps to place the entire Laguna Community under quarantine to limit opportunities for the virus to be brought to campus. We stopped rotation of staff to various units and limited impacted areas to essential personnel. We made the hard but necessary decision in early march to restrict visitors on site. This week in partnership with the cdc we have escalated action to further decrease movement to a minimum to fight the outbreak and reduce spread. It served 1700 staff. We have restricted access to the hospital by closing all but twoence transes tight limontored and controlled. Staff are medically screened as they enter. Residents are not allowed to leave. We restricted access to areas where residents may gather, including the library. They are providing much needed clinical leadership and support to our very strong dph team to strengthen the approach including contact and tracing. We continue to test staff and residents. They have joined the ongoing discussions about other longterm care facilities and how we can strengthen them to prevent outbreaks. Laguna honda is a top priority and we are working to protect the residents and staff there. We want to thank everyone who has been involved in this very large and important effort. These teams brought knowledge and resource from the work all over the country and world shared citywide. We are fortunate to have their help at laguna honda. Thank you. Now, i would like to introduce chief scott, who will say a few words. Good afternoon everyone. I want to follow the mayors lead and talk about positives. I must say overall we have seen really good compliance in our city. We had good compliance overall with social distancing last week. Thanks to the proactive leadership of our mayor, director of Public Health and city leaders who jumped out in front of this. We had rain last week, and that probably helped as well. This is a week of good weather. We are still continuing to see for the most part compliance with the Public Health orders and social distancing. There are challenges, and i will discuss those in a little detail to make sure we all understand what is at stake here. There have been a couple of instances or several rather where we have seen social distancing challenges. We are talking about public plazas in some parts of the city, we have seen as this has progressed we have seen people playing on playgrounds and playing team sports and soccer in the parks. Thanks to our director of rec and parks we have closed many of those parks so we are not having those issues. We are working as hard as we can to educate the public. The police department, city workers, Emergency Operations center has a community branch. Through the leadership of Mary Ellen Carol and her team we reached out to people to really give the education to the public about what needs to happen with this pandemic. What needs to happen is we need to stay true to the social distancing that Public Health officials have mandated. Six feet apart, no gathering, social distancing when you go to Grocery Stores and the like, make sure you social distance and you practice those things. Last time i was here i predicted there will be a time where we have to site. That time has come. We have begun citing. I will make this clear for the Business Owners and the mayor has done everything and continues to do Everything Possible to lighten the blow and we know this is a drastic impact to peoples leaves. We have to abide by Public Health orders. We warned businesses, many of them, several of them rather, that they were nonessential and when those businesses have been contacted we have taken incident reports. Those incident reports can lead to criminal or civil action, but if we have to go back, we are not going to ask twice. We have had to cite a business in the last 24 hours and we have cited individuals in the last 24 hours. These are people that have been warned before. I would like to ask again for the publics help and compliance. Lets help each other and help ourselves. This is serious. We need to abide by the Public Health orders. If we have to go back, and you have been warned, you will not get a second warning. We understand not everybody has access to the internet or social media or gets the newspaper. That is why we are warning and educating where we can and where that is appropriate. As i said a couple days ago and again today we are not warning you twice. Please heed these orders. We are trying to save lives and keep everybody safe and healthy. This weekend, it might rain. Right now it is nice and people want to go out and get exercise. We respect that. If you live in the same household still practice social distancing. In the same hose how ol the e rules are different. Please abide by it. You will not be asked twice. There are situations, and the city is doing everything it can. The mayor, director of Public Health, director of homelessness, we are working together to work with these impacted populations that dont have shelter, dont have a home. We are being very patient and educating. We need you all, those individuals in those populations to practice social distancing. This is really important, and i cant stress it enough. We have begun to site. We will not ask you twice. We have been extremely patient. We want to stay ahead like we have done at this point. We want to flatten the curve and save lives. There are a few updates in terms of the general policing in the city. As we have reported, crime has been drastically reduced since the stay at home order was issued. We are continuing to see that trend. For those that have to go out, be careful. Social distance. We had a significant drop in property crimes and violent crimes. The overall crime is down over 26 from this time last year when you do a month to missouri comparison. That is a month to missouri h comparison. Report crimes if you experience them. We are doing what we can to try to limit exposure to officers, general public and general public to officers. You can call in if it is nonviolent call the Emergency Line 415 5530123 to report the crimes. You can utilize 311 or utilize the website. Some crimes you can report online as well. We have started a call in center for Crime Reporting to make it easier to report those crimes. If you have suffered a crime, report it. If it is violent we will respond to those crimes in person. I ask everyone watching this add hed the Public Health orders, keep your distance, listen to what the professional in the Public Health department and around the country are saying, and we will save lives in our city and country. I thank you in advance for your coulyourcooperation. Please stay safe and stay healthy. Thank you. Questions for mayor breed from nbc bay area. Earlier this week you explained the city doesnt have the resources to provide Wraparound Services needed to allow just any homeless person in the shelter in the cityleased hotel. Yesterday five supervisors made the argument the city does have the resources so long as they can selfcare. Are the supervisors wrong or are you wrong . Mayor breed let me start by talking about moscone west. We opened a day later, almost 400 shelter beds because we didnt have sufficient staffing to cover what we know we need as it relates to those sellter beds as well as other locations that we need to house people. It is not as simple as we can open up a hotel room except for those who we know can basically selfcare, people that we are working within our Shelter Systems and other places. It is a real challenge. The fact is if there is someone who is diagnosed or suspected of coronavirus they have to stay in that particular hotel room, and we have to make sure that there are resources there, including food, cleaning, security to make sure they dont leave those locations. There is a lot that goes into not only having the resources but making sure the people working with other people, we have to keep them safe. We have to make sure everyone understands the protocol. Social distancing applies in the shelters. Social distancing applies when people are cleaning and doing things that need done because there will continue to be challenging, but i want to be clear that we have a system by which we are focusing on making sure that we are helping the most vulnerable Homeless Population. That is people in the shelters, people who are over the age of 60 and have underlying conditions, people who we know have no place to go or may live in a congregate setting and have no place to shelterinplace. We have to prioritize those people, and that is what is most important. We are hopeful that we will, of course, be able to do more, but it is going to require more money and staffing. There are limitations what we can cover but what we get reimbursed for from the federal government. It is a lot more complicated than what some are trying to imply, and this is why we have professionals in our Public Health industry. This is why we have departments where people have been doing this work for many, many years. The folks who are part of the Emergency Operation center are the professionals with the expertise and understanding. The citys office and others have a building what we need to do and we are putting what we need to do into place based on what we know we can deliver on. Next questions for doctor Susan Phillips. I want to take a moment to make sure i said the numbers of cases across the city and people in the hospital in case i didnt say it clearly. As of today there are 497 San Francisco residents with confirmed cases of coronavirus. 60 of them are in hospitals across the city. Half of those are in i c. U. Sadly, 7 people from San Francisco have died from the virus. California is 50th in terms of testing with only oklahoma testing fewer people than california as of this morning. California has a huge number of tests pending, close to 60,000. Why cant california process these tests and what is being done about this . The situation in San Francisco and the people in leadership in the state of california and Public Health can answer about pending tests. I can talk about what we are doing and how we responded in San Francisco. Doctodr. Colfax and the mayor td about expanding testing in the sites we work with and control the Public Health and Clinical Laboratory at zuckerberg general hospital. We have had very strong partnerships with university of California California and u. C. S. F. Lab has capacity to test. We are increasing our local capacity to test. That is our focus. We do not have a backlog of tests for residents in San Francisco testing at the sites we are working with. As the mayor and dr. Colfax have said. Everyone across the country is facing a limitation on the collection kits needed to do testing. Tainmenthe tests in the lab ares good to get the tests from patients and to the laboratory. We are working to allow for different types of test kits and swabs to be used. That is going on with the eoc and department of Health Laboratory experts and u. C. S. F. Staff. We are in a challenge. We are increasing every week the numbers of tests available. Later today we will have Information Available to the public to see the progress on testing. Related to that question from the San Francisco chronicle. How many tests does the department of Public Health have every day . How are you rationing and prioritizing the tests. The issue is not the tests and kits. It is the collection supplies. We are working to get hands around the numbers of those supplies. In normal situations many of these would be at clinics and locations throughout dph. We are gathering that together to understand what we have. Those will be prioritized based where we see the most vulnerable populations. We talked about laguna honda hospital and how we are in discussion with California Department of Public Health and our experts about testing there. As we decide on the need for testing we will prioritize that population for the tests we center. We continue to increase capacity for testing. We are bringing on experts to help optimize the work flow and get the most out of our equipment and bring on more people. We are ramping up capacity in the lab. We work to make sure we have more collection kits needed for testing. We are trying to partner and bring on new ways of doing testing with partners in sites that may be new that we havent fried before such as walk up or drive up testing. You will hear more about that in the coming weeks as well. Another question from the San Francisco chronicle. The number at laguna hospital has remained at 12. Is it under control or too early to tell . Too early to tell. We take the situation seriously. That is why we are briefing the public about it on a regular basis. We asked for expertise from c dc to be added to our own we want he are glad there have been only 12 cases identified. We continue to be thinking about additional patients and staff that might require testing, and we know we have to be vigilant based on what we have seen about how vulnerable patients are and because of the size and scope and sheer number of people involved we want to be very cautious how we proceed. We pay the highest amount of attention to laguna hospital. It is encouraging that we have not seen more than 12 cases. We need to keep that level of vigilance up. Are you considering making mask wearing in public mandatory and under what circumstances might that happen . I want to clarify we are not talking about masks. We are talking about face coverings. Any type of homemade cloth, a scarf, bandanna, we are not talking about masks. Specifically isolation masks and n7979595 masks should be reservr healthcare workers. We are trying to decrease the amount of unwittingly how we are spreading virus particles to other people even if we dont feeling safe. We are protecting people around us. We are not considering mandatory covering of space. This is a good tool and we know that people in San Francisco have been doing their part by staying home, keeping distance, limiting outings to essential services and looking for additional ways to protect the community and work to flatten the curve. This is in addition to those important activities San Francisco is already undertaking. It is not mandatory at all at this time. Have you personally started wearing a mask when you go out . If so, when, what kind, how has the experience been . I have started covering my face when i go out. I have used a scarf on some occasions. I do have an isolation mask that i use as part of the eoc and doc being an essential worker for the city and needing to come to work every day. If you do have a mask that ushusing, if you are not just using a homemade face cover extend the use. I have had the same mask for two weeks. There is no need to discard it to have a new one every day. It is an odd thing at first as we walk around the streets we see more people doing it, and we think it will become the norm. That is the way in which san franciscans are giving us the courtesy to move out of the way and the mask will be a reminder that life is not normal yet. We are looking forward to the time when we can go back to the city more normal. For now it is a reminder to keep our physical space, reminder to stay home as much as possible. I dont want to overlook washing hands and using Hand Sanitizer is one of the best things to do to keep ourselves healthy and others around us. Last question. From the new york times. How familiar icu beds and ventilators have been made available in San Francisco . Will the City Hospitals be securing more of them . In San Francisco advance planning has been going on for weeks, very early in our planning as the city. As the mayor has said through her leadership we declared an emergency early on on february 25th. Since this time there are teams doing advanced planning for i c. U. Availability and beds. Later today we will have up Information Available to the public about just that. We know people are very interested in hospitals, capacity and surge. We currently do not need to use any of our surge capacity. As we said there are 60 people hospitalized throughout the city with covid19 at this time. 30 are in i c. U. That is well with in our capacity as a city. The full numbers are percent occupied and all of that will become available later. As we get additional information, it will be shared. There is ongoing planning about surge, ongoing planning about how we would accommodate that. There are requests put in by the mayor to secure additional beentilators and surge capacity. That has been going on for a long time in San Francisco. Thank you. Next questions are for Abigail Stewart conn. As i get started here, i want be to introduce myself. I am the interim director of the department of homelessness and supportive housing. Before i respond to questions, i want to note a couple things. This pandemic gives us the opportunity to keeply understand that housing is healthcare. That is clear now more than ever. Thanks to the leadership of mayor breed before the crisis hit, she supercharged our homelessness response system with expansion. As i was visiting many housing and shelter and navigation site yesterday i saw 9,000 homeless that are safer because of that housing. Immediately after the homelessness response after the coronavirus became evident we pivoted the response system to care, prevention and response. Echoing mayor breeds note about positivity our system of care is tremendously grateful for the h. H. S. Staff, guests, tenants and clients and People Living unsheltered in our community, to our City Partners annan profits and community we see you out there thanking us. I know my family has been out at 7 00 cheering with Musical Instruments and putting signs in windows. That is deeply helpful to all of the amazing front line workers in the homelessness response system. First question. What is the current number of Homeless People that have been moved into hotels . That is an excellent question. At the direction of the department of Public Health, the first hotels have been used for people coming out of hospitals and medical care when they dont need to be in the beds. You heard that from the Deputy Health officer earlier. Trent rhorer provided the update 120 people, 90 to 95 of those individuals are homeless or formerly homeless. That number increases a bit each day but will decrease as those individuals through the direction of Public Health have completed their isolation or quarantine period and are able to move to other locations. When do you expect more will be moved in and how many total by when . That is a great question. Let me be clear. From the beginning of this issue, the mayor and all of the leadership of the city has put housed Public Health and unsheltered Public Health on equal footing. Our sheltered and unsheltered population on the list of people receiving services from day one. First from the hospitals, the individuals now in the hotels. In the coming days we will stand up hotels with the support of human Services Agency responsible for mass care and shelter to rapidly expand the Hotel Capacity they have already obtained those hotels. We are pivoting to moving to staffing, supplying and transporting those individuals. We are be beginning this process with people vulnerable to covid19 among the homeless. We hear you and know that being homeless makes you vulnerable, and we need to start somewhere. At the direction of Public Health that is people who are over 60 or who have an Underlying Health condition that makes you vulnerable to covid. I know you have a priority to keep hospital beds open, would families with Young Children or pregnant women be eligible for the hotel rooms you are talking about . We are spending a tremendous amount of time on the single adult to population. Our staff and partners are working tirelessly with young people and families. Let me talk how that looks. San francisco under the mayor breed attained functional zero in unsheltered homelessness. We maintained that through the covid19. That doesnt mean somebody is sleeping in their car and not wanting to come into shelter. It means we have the capacity to take them in when we outreach to them and they say yes. That continues today. Families, women who are pregnant can come indoors immediately into a congregate setting and through a partnership with Human Services increasingly to hotel rooms through cal works and Additional Hotels coming online. Last question for you. Cathy novak k cbs radio. How many people from the Navigation Center have been moved to the hotels and what is the plan for the rest of the residents . Thank you for the question. Thank you for your compassion. I am going to use this opportunity to speak about the full response of the city to our first covid positive individual staying at a Navigation Center. Immediately upon learning of the diagnosis the shelter site was supplied with masks. They are wearing them at alltime and they initiated Contact Tracing to identify who that special, we call them guests. The individual i am not sure we should share the gender, has initiated Contact Tracing with the individual who is now a patient in very good condition. That allows us to understand who is considered exposed, vulnerable and so on at our site. In response to the positive test the department of Public Health rapidly employed a physician and Health Workers to conduct system as and temperature screening beyond what was already in place. Any guest with symptoms with covid19 will be tested and relocated to staff quarantined rooms immediately. Other guests will be moved to hotel rooms based on exposure and risk of disease. They will be provided medical support and space to selfisolate. They are considered healthcare workers in this situation. The city is deploying a professional cleaning crew in addition to the cleaning resources led by may or breed at the beginning of this epidemic and that is ongoing. Staff will be on site to answer questions. They will guide social distancing and implement Shelter Health screening pro pocols. I am with that community. Division circling is near my childrens school. It is a favorite spot of mine. It is important to understand this is not a place those not staying there should visit. We bring our germs to people experiencing homelessness when we try to show up to help. You can help by going out to cheer for people on the streets, you can help in all of the ways to donate. Dont try to enter the site. It is not allowed at this time. That is reserved for guests and staff there. Thank you for your compassion for that community. Final question. Have people started moving to the facilities at moscone west . That is happening today. As mayor breed said setting up a shelter because of the 1,000 shelter bed challenge is not a small feat. We need to do this with care and compassion. We need this to be succes succel for people to shelterinplace. Thanks to human Services Agency we are rapidly expanding the sites and people are moving in there today. Next questions are for the chief. Chief a question about the citations you referenced. How many people and businesses have been cited. Are these misdemeanor citations . With the businesses we have taken six incident reports for businesses that were not essential this should have been closed apwerent. One of those six had to be cited. We have stated publicly that our enforcement posture is progressive. We educate initially, sometimes at the beginning we educated more. We still do everything we can to educate. With the businesses, if they are not supposed to be open, we ask them to close. We are asking for compliance. This is not a race to see how many we can cite. We are trying to get compliance. When the businesses close we take an incident report. Those can lead to criminal or civil action. The people that review those cases make that determination. If we have to come back, we are citing, particularly with businesses. With the individuals there has been one individual cited. As i said we put out the enforcement protocol a week ago we vetted through the City Attorneys. Again we look for compliance. By and large most people when approached by a Police Officer will comply. That is what we have seen. That is the trend. There are areas that are sub born. Stubborn. If we have to use citations and enforcement that is what we will do. I want to emphasize the positive. Most people in the city have been compliant. Thank you. That concludes our press conference. Thank you. Mayor breed about afternoon. Thank you for joining us. I am San Francisco mayor london breed to provide an update with what is happens in San Francisco as it relates to the covid19 pandemic that we have been faced with here in our city and throughout the world. I am joined by our department of Public Health director grant colfax as well as the police chief bill scott, department of Human Resources director trent rohr. Currenttor odirector of emergeny management. We will help guide you through this unique challenge. I want to thank the workers who are in the hospitals working with people every day, healthcare workers, nurses, doctors, support staff showing up every day. I have seen a outpouring of love and support from san franciscans who are social distancing outside and giving hand claps and love to our healthcare workers. We appreciate what you are doing every day to keep people safe. We also want to say thank you to First Responders, police and firefighters, bus drivers, Grocery Store clerks, so many people who are showing up to work to help provide help and support and assistance to others. What you are doing on the front lines means so much to us. We truly have a deep appreciation for your commitment to serving others during this pandemic. We all know that yesterday the county Health Officers in the bay area announced an extension until may 3rd of this stay at home order with new guidelines that definitely are as far as i am concerned adding but reiterating the importance. I wanted to justi to continue to stress the need to practice social distancing. I want to refer to it as physical distancing. We cannot be physically close to one another, it doesnt mean we cant pick up the phone and reach out to people and reach out to neighbors and continue to do everything we can to support one another during this very difficult time because the likelihood this may 3rd date will be extended is possible. We already know that the school year for kids has been impacted tremendously, and we know that from some of the early reports that it looks like even though there are real challenges in San Francisco, we are at 434 cases, and sadly, seven deaths, it could be a lot worse if all of you werent playing an Important Role by staying at home when at all possible. For clarity, we know that people may need to go outside and take a walk, walk their dog or jog with babies or go to the Grocery Store. What we ask people to do is get the fresh air, get the exercise you need walking, jogging or biking. Maintain your physical distance from people not in your household. I see friends all of the time, and i desperately want to go give them a hug, my neighbors. I cant do that. It is a natural thing to want to have that kind of connection with people, but i also realize the importance of not only protecting myself but protecting them. That is what this is all about as much as the natural reflection is to give love and support and extend a hand, it is just really critical that we not do that at this time. Once we are over this, that knows . We might be able to hug anybody we want. Who knows . I want to talk about my incredible experiences, as i mentioned earlier this week. I had a neighbor drop a slip in my mailbox to reach out to say they are my block captain and as a result of being the block captain they are there to provide grocery runs, pharmacy runs and also i can call or email them if i want somebody to talk to. It was very touching. It made me think about our vulnerable population. We have been thinking about this. People have been doing this all over the city informally. I heard about another resident in the sunset. Someone reached out and realized they were a senior and couldnt leave the house, dropped off groceries, asked if they needed support, first of all, asked if they spoke other languages besides english and provided a comprehensive outreach to support neighbors. I know there are so many people doing that. We are grateful for you. I want to take that to the next level. Today i want to announce an opportunity for san franciscans to get involved and volunteer. People have been great, but so many have said my neighbors, i dont have that vulnerable population, i want to get involved and be helpful. The program that we are announcing today provides you with an opportunity to do just that. To help those who are seniors and are part of the vulnerable population, especially People Living in isolation and cant run the basic errands in order to get groceries and support and resources that they need. The department of aging and Adult Services under be the direction of shreen with us here today. They have partnered with the office of transgender initiatives to develop a program where you can sign up and we will partner you with a senior. Basically, it is like you are going to be responsible for caring for and taking care of that senior for the duration of this issue or this pandemic. I think that what is gained from this is not only the ability to do something to help support others, but it could be the beginning of a long lasting friendship. We know so many seniors are living in isolation. They may not have family members who are there and available to them. Here is an opportunity for you to help someone who desperately needs help at this time. To get information about this program, you can look on our website at sfgov. Org or call 311 or 415 3556700. I also want to thank mona a. M. I. They have repurposed the app to help us connect people with seniors who are living in isolation, and this program is also important a combination of mona and open house and others have been great in taking the initiative and doing the work. Now we are going to expand upon the work that they are already doing in order to connect even more seniors to resources. That is really our goal. I think this is going to be an Incredible Opportunity for our city. If you are interested, please reach out to us. I also want to talk a little bit about some of our efforts and trent will talk more about hotel rooms, shelters and some of the things we have planned to help house our unsheltered population. I want to just start by saying that i know that we have thousands of hotel rooms here in San Francisco. I know that people are asking why dont we just open the doors and let everyone who is homeless get access to a hotel room . I wish it were that easy. I wish it were that easy to help people who unfortunately are struggling with addiction, sadly struggling with mental illness. I wish it were that easy to provide a place for them to be. I want folks to understand part of the challenge we have here we have secured over 400 hotel rooms. We hope to increase that number and again trent will talk in more detail about the priorities and purposes and how we are preparing, but i want to be clear that the capacity and the resources in general needed to provide the wraparound Supportive Services for many of these populations make it very difficult to just open the doors and allow anyone to walk in. In addition to that, we dont have the ability to force anyone to stay anywhere. That also becomes a challenge even with our shelter system. It is going to continue to be a challenge, but we have a plan to talk about exactly how we are going to do a couple things. Number one, deal with the challenges of our congregate living settings, places like shelters and Single Room Occupancy Hotels. We know that if someone gets the virus and they live in an sro where they share bathrooms with others, we dont want to send them back to a location where we know they could infect others. We want to isolate them and provide them with a hotel room so they can get better, and that is a real part of the goal of our program. We also know that there are proactive steps we can take, and with our shelter system we have identified a location to specifically help to spin out our shelter beds. Masconie west and south will be a place for room for 400 people. The goal is to thin out the shelter system so people arent as close to one another as they are in our shelters. We will start as early as tomorrow moving people from shelters allaround the city into masconie west with 24 Hour Services of support, food, resources and exactly the kinds of things that you need in order to manage a shelter system here in the city. This is something that trent will talk more in detail about. I also want to touch on something that came out yesterday about the budget impacts and the fact that, unfortunately, based on the controllers work and research around what is happening with the finances of the city, there is, of course, a huge hit to our general fund and huge hit to our economy as a whole. We can anticipate a budget deficit of anywhere between 1. 1 and 1. 7 billion over the next two fiscal years. That is going to mean really a hard blow to San Francisco, a hard blow to our services. As we are also spending money and dealing with this pandemic locally to keep people safe, we also have to be mind full about what will happen if we are not financially responsible now. If we are not making wise decisions about resources and how we allocate things and prioritize things, we are going to be in a lot of trouble financially in this city. We are going to need to make smart decisions. We are hopeful that the resources that we anticipate from the federal and State Government will be of help, but when you are talking about a 1. 1 to 1. 7 billion budget deficit, that is significant. Lets be mindful of that. We know there is a lot of need now and we are doing what we can to not only take existing resources as well as raise private sector dollars to help our Small Business community and others suffering. This is a tough road ahead of us, and be we are working every single day to put together the resources and the people. We will have more to announce, some more information tomorrow about our Recovery Plan and how we are going to start to develop the right task force that would allow for labor and Business Community and city departments and others to come together to begin to talk about the future of San Francisco, our Recovery Efforts and what do we do once this pendemic has been lifted. There will be a lot of people suffering financially and we need to get prepared for it. Not only now but in the future. The other thing i wanted to talk about is the census, and i actually did the online census. It didnt take very long. I was surprised that it was so quick. I think it took me maybe five minutes to go online and put in the number analog in. It was very simple. You can go to my 2020 census. Gov or call 18443302020. Anything that we talk about today you can also if you have questions, concerns 311 is a great tool to get information as well or the city website at sf sfgov. Org. Why is it important to be counted . We dont know if any decision to make changes to the census might occur in d. C. , but we do know that when we are counted, we count. When you think about 2 trilliondollar stimulus package that is being provided to the entire country, our state and possibly our city could have a tremendous percentage of that packet based on the number of people that are counted in previous census. People counted in the 2000 census, that is the data used to determine population and other things and resources and how we get our fair share of the pie. This is really important. Every person should be counted. Every person, meaning if you are a u. S. Citizen or not. If you are part of the immigrant community, you are part of the San Francisco community. This information will not be used against anyone based on immigration status. The census is protected in that way. We know this is a very challenging time. We want to impress upon people in the city how important it is for everyone to make sure that you complete your census information. You get that sent in as soon as possible. For those at home with access to the internet, you have no excuse. We need your help and support. Please make sure you are counted. To the nonprofit agencies that receive funding for outreach, this is a great opportunity to work from home to pick up the phone to call people and figure out ways in which people can be counted. This will make a difference in how we continue to get the kinds of resources necessary to make sure that we get our fair share. That is what it is about. Make sure you complete your census. It is critical to the future of our city and country. With that, thank you all so much for all of your work. Everyone who is out there doing what we need to do to keep san franciscans safe, we know that it is only two weeks. It feels like it has been several months, but hang in there. Take care of yourself, take care of your physical and mental health. Try not to snap at your kids too much. They cant help themselves. I am sure they are feeling as challenged as you are during this time. My heart goes out to a lot of the families with children especially. I know that this is a tough time. So many kids not able to stay in school and hang out with their friends and see their teachers. Just lets be mindful we are all going through this together, and for one reason or another are experiencing a number of probably emotional challenges as a result of this. Lets be patient with one another, lets comply with social distancing, lets try to set an example and continue to hold our heads up so we can get through this together. With that i want to introduce doctor grant colfax. Good afternoon. I am grant colfax, director of health. Thank you, mayor breed. Today in my update i want to thank everyone for their cooperation and everything they are doing to help fight the spread of the coronavirus. When you stay home, when you keep six feet apart from people during the times you must go out for essential reasons and when you wash your hands, you are saving lives. These efforts are important. They are not enough. We must redouble our commitment to slowing down the virus in our community to protect vulnerable populations and our Healthcare System and to make the best path forward for recovery. Some people have asked this week, is it working . Are we as a community in San Francisco and in the region flattening the curve in my message today for you is it is simply too early to tell. We know we are doing the right thing, and the data tells us that staying home is the very best defense. But at this stage of the game, there are still plausible scenarios that our Healthcare System could be brought to the brink and even overwhelmed. I dont want that to happen. None of us want that to happen. That is why we are here doing everything we can to follow the science, data and facts to drive our decisions. Yesterday, San Francisco joined with other bay area counties to extend the Stay Home Order to may 3rd. I know this is very challenging. There are roll zero o real serious economic and emotional impacts. These sacrifices are an investment in our future as a community and as a city. It is time to take a deep breath and get ready to stay home all month. The new order is much like the one that was put into place on march 16th. All san franciscans must stay home as much as possible abonly leave for essential activities like getting food and medicine. Even then stay at least six feet away from others if they are not part of our immediate households. Go outside to take care of a pet or exercise so long as you do not congregate in a group and you must maintain six feet of distance between you and other people not part of your immediate household. Essential workers are still needed to help our community during this time so that people can buy groceries, get gas, do laundry, get prescriptions, travel for essential reasons, get essential healthcare and other basic important and vital functions. I am grateful to our essential workers in the public and private sector for all they are continuing to do every day to keep everyone as healthy and safe as possible. The new Stay Home Order strengthens the previous one in some significant ways. Here are four examples. Social distancing, physical distances is now mandatory when people leave home. Use of playgrounds, outdoor gym equipment and picnic areas and barbecue areas is prohibited. This is to remove the temptation to gather. Number three. People who can work from home must do so. Number four. Essential businesses must put in place formal rules for physical distancing protocols to ensure proper sanitation that people stay a safe distance away from each other. These rules and many others are detailed in the order posted online along with updated frequently asked questions at sf. Gov. Now, i would like to give an update on laguna hospital. We are very concerned about a growing outbreak there and are continuing to do everything we can to protect the health of residents and staff. This week we received help from the California Department of Public Health, centers for Disease Control and prevention and other key federal partners. They are working closely with us on the current cases, contact investigations and recommendations for improved preparedness and response Going Forward. With regard to testing. As of today laguna honda has 12 confirmed cases of coronavirus. 10 are among staff and two are among residents. Of staff, seven have been in patient care positions and three are no not to date 89 patient he been tested. 218 Staff Members have tested through the Health Department or through their own provider. As we speak, the centers for Disease Control and prevention their experts are on site conducting thorough tracing and contact investigation, taking action now and providing us with an evidencebased datadriven road map for aggressive action in the future. They are identifying and testing staff and residents that they are concerned may have been exposed to the coronavirus. With regard to Behavioral Health needs this is a challenging time for staff and residents. We added extra resources. We have opened a dedicated phone line staffed by psychiatry clinicians to provide support. This is in addition to regular clinical Behavioral Health services. We have a Behavioral Health specialist on site. He is reaching out to staff on the two units impacted to provide support and coping mechanisms. The specialist are available to all staff and they will reach out to provide services. Caring for most vulnerable during this pandemic is some of the most intense and selfless work in the city. I want to thank the staff at laguna honda, residents and families for their forbearance and resilience and capacity to be part of our response to this pandemic. I am there, the Health Department is there, and the city is there for them. With regard to cdc, centers for Disease Control and prevention, and the California Department of Public Health, i am thankful for the support we have received from them as well as our federal medical partners. There is an ever changing this is an ever changing situation, and the ability to develop and share best practices and protocols will help slow the spread of the virus both at laguna honda and other residential nursing facilities in the city and the region. Again, i am most grateful for their support and expertise. The cdc, centers for Disease Control and prevention, has five physicians and scientists on site at laguna honda today. They are providing much needed staff and strengthening the contact investigations which is crucial to slowing and stopping the spread of the virus. They are also providing expert knowledge to assist clinical teams in the review of clinical protocols and guidelines and any revisionsness given the fluid situation. As we learn more, as we receive more data, we will adjust our response accordingly. The California Department of Public Health is providing expertise and guidance on Infection Control practices throughout the hospital through direct observation. They have made recommendations for improvements in environmental cleaning and staff practices which are immediately acted upon by laguna honda staff and zuckerberg San Francisco general hospital. Let me be clear. These experts have insights from around the country and across the world to help us do better in our local response. They have also joined the Ongoing Department of Health Discussion with other longterm facilities in the city to assess current infection surveillance and control planning. I look forward to their daily briefings and recommendations for both individual facilities and monitoring our system as a whole. We and i will continue to do everything we can to respond to the changing situation at laguna honda. I will keep staff, residents, families and the public updated. I want be to remind everyone that we continue to focus our response efforts on slowing the spread of the coronavirus. Preparing the Healthcare System for a surge, expanding testing, supporting healthcare workers and protecting vulnerable populations including those at laguna honda. I am pleased to update the two drop in testing sites for their patients successfully opened earlier this week and have started conducting coronavirus tests. We have been identified spaces in hotels and motels for quarantine and isolation to protect people from homelessness and living in congregate settings. We are adding more spaces for people to shelter. We have made significant progress. Trent ward will now share an update. Thank you. I am the executive director of human Services Agency. We are charged with providing housing and care in the citys disaster Emergency Response. In this case, the citys Covid Response. We acwe activated the center on. The most pressing need was to set up housing for individuals in response to covid. Covid. We had to ensure a relief valve for individuals who did not need to be there but needed to be quarantined. We recognized the best way to do this would be to rent thousands of hotel rooms in San Francisco. Thanks to mayor breeds leadership early on she joined me and director colfax in a meeting with the Hotel Council where we asked for their help. They stepped up by providing responding to our request for quotes offering over 10,000 hotel rooms for this purpose. I want to walk through now with you all what the priorities are for these hotel rooms. I am going slowly because this is important detail, and it is important that not only the press but stakeholders understand these priorities. It is important to note that these priorities are at the direction of the department of Public Health, Covid Response to the city is a health response. We are taking the best guidance from the department of Public Health in terms of their needs. For the hotel rooms online. The number one priority is to discharge or divert individuals who need to quarantine because they are covid positive or have been tested and are showing symptoms. Divert from the hospital or discharge from the hospital when they dont need to be there. 95 of these individuals are homeless. Remaining would be those in Single Room Occupancy Hotels and cant quarantine at their home. Next population that is important for hotel rooms are the vulnerable population, which are individuals aged 60 and older or individuals who have Underlying Health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the covid virus. First priority among this population would be the vulnerable in the homeless shelters. As we move to reducing the census in the shelters to create the physical distance physical distance required we will move to hotel rooms if they can selfcare. If they can be in the room on their own with the minimum level of support from the city annan e nonprofit providers. Then it is the front line healthcare responders, doctors, nurses, medical professionals who need a place to stay so they dont go home to potentially infect their family and loved ones. We can provide them rooms here to allow them to stay. Some of the front line Health Responders are exposed to the virus and will be exposed. We have rooms set aside to quarantine in hotels in San Francisco rather than quarantining at home. Last population for hotel rooms would be the vulnerable population. Let me restate that. Individuals aged 60 and older or individuals with Underlying Health conditions to make them vulnerable to could individual. Covid. They are living on the streets unsheltered. They are prioritized for hotel rooms. They need to selfcare. If they are quarantined they will be in the rooms with with meals delivered to them. The secondary response. Let me give you numbers. I know you will ask. To date the city has entered into contracts with six hotels providing a total of 479 rooms. The priority population for those rooms are the first category which are individuals being discharged or diverted from the hospital who are homeless and who are covid positive or have been tested. To date we have moved 123 individuals to the first hotel. We have additional rooms totaling 479. In addition, we have another two hotels totaling 576 rooms that we anticipate finalizing the contract at the end of today. They will be online by tomorrow. Then we have discussions with one additional hotel, a large hotel of 1500 rooms that we hope to enter into contract by the end of this week or saturday. Ithis brings the total hotel rooms to 2555 by the end of this week. It is important to know media and others ask what the target is. It is difficult. It is like projecting the curve, the medical surge and timing. It is difficult to know how many rooms we need. We are nimble enough to flex up to as many as 6555 rooms. Say that again. 6,555 rooms. We are in contract discussions with hotels totaling that number. We are attempting to balance the need of the medical system and the need for isolating and quarantining and providing safe places for vulnerable populations. Balancing that with fiscal prudence. We dont want to rent 3,000 rooms for a couple rooms. We want to manage the medical surge and manage the need of the vulnerable populations on the shelters, streets, Single Room Occupancy Hotels. The second piece is creating the physical distance in the homeless shelter system. Cdc is creating three feet of distance in between in the homeless shelters. We are moving to six feet in between. We need to move individuals from existing homeless shelter system to shelter that we are setting up right now. As the mayor announced earlier, our first shelter that will be ready to transfer individuals into is at moscone west. It is 394 individuals with full neals, showers, full meals and showers. It will be staffed by department of Public Health shelter Health Workers as well as other nonprofit partners. We will be moving individuals from existing shelters into this facility tomorrow. We have two other shelter sites we are currently negotiating with. I wont say the location or the names because we are not completed with the negotiations, but this will provide us slots for an additional 460 to 510 individuals. These three facilities combined will allow us to achieve physical distance in the current sellther system and the shelters we are deploying by the beginning of next week. Important to note individuals who are in our shelter system who are vulnerable age 60 and older or Health Conditions will not be moved to a new shelter. They will remain and we will arrange for transport to moments rooms if they can selfcare. The last intervention that we are charged with deploying are the trailers the state of california is sending to us to the state Department Emergency Operations Center for the state. That is 91 trailers coming to San Francisco. In addition we have secured an additional 30 recreational vehicles. We have identified a site and are currently negotiating with that site to finally the agreement and to begin setting those up. We anticipate those being primarily used for individuals who need to isolate but who have significant other needs, Behavioral Health or addiction or other physical health needs that need to be staffed by a medical professional, that need to be in an isolation setting but arent equipped to selfcare in hotel rooms. Clearly this response takes the entire city to cooperate. Hsa is not doing this alone. We are doing it in partnership with department of real estate, City Attorneys and department of Public Health and in the case for moscone west we cant thank the director of the convention e confacilities for helping us set up th the space. It is amazing the level of work, expertise and partnership in the city. There is no way we could do this alone. No way the department of health can manage alone. Mayor breed is steadfast in her leadership and guidance andy serves a lot of credit for the way the city has responded. Thank you. Good afternoon. I am Assembly Member david chu. I have been in touch with my legislative colleagues around the state regularly. What has been apparent to all of us is the leadership of San Francisco and the bay area during this coronavirus we have been setting the standard, leading the way. I want to take a moment to thank everyone who is part of the Emergency Response and the Public Health response and the response to the economic challenges we are facing. The decisions that have been made earlier here in our region and our city have been setting the gold standard. I just want to come to thank you for that. Having a chance to tour the eoc, we have a sophisticated operation with many moving parted. I want to thank the men and women who are part of this. I should say as the chair of the api legislative caucus today is census day. Among all of the many things folks are doing if we dont ensure that every resident in San Francisco is being counted, we are jeopardizing billions of dollars of federal funding to city and state. I would reiterate not only are you making yourself counted. Please ask your friends and family to ensure that is the case. We are working hard to ensure that there are statewide resources and moving forward policies to ensure not only are we housing everyone unhoused but working hard to make sure tenants are protected during this time and that when we come out of this crisis we are planning to keep people housed and doing all we can during this crisis. We have managed during this time period to do all we can. There is more that we can do. I want to thank mayor breed and the leadership in the city for working closely with the state and with our federal government. Together we will prevail for all of our family members at home, stay strong. We will get through this and we will come out the other side stronger than ever. Thank you very much. Questions for dr. Colfax. This is about mask guidance. Is the San Francisco department of Public Health issues mask guidance . When and where should people wear them . So our Health Department issued recommendations for Health Department employees and First Responders to wear mask on a recent announcement. The key for these employees and teams is to prevent transmission of the virus from them to other people, including members of the public. There is a window period for some people where they do not have symptoms could transmit the virus. This is particularly important where there is High Frequency of continued contact with vulnerable populations, such as in the hospital, in the emergency room, in our correctional facilities, and with our Police Officers and firefighters out there helping people every day. I want to emphasize San Francisco as with the rest of the region and rest of the country has a severe, severe shortage of masks. I am very concerned about our ability as a Health Department to supply masks ongoing for people. We are asking everyone to keep that mask that you receive as long as possible, as long as possible until it becomes soiled. We need these masks for Public Health and First Responder purposes. We are assessing along with many other jurisdictions right now with regard to facial barrier recommendations for the broader populations, and we will be continuing to look at that data following the evidence and pants and any further recommendations you will hear it from us with regard to recommendations Going Forward. Thank you. Thank you. A follow on to that question from abc 7. Should people be wearing homemade masks or bandanna . Do they serve the same purpose . At this time there are no recommendations from the cdc with regard to wearing mask. We are focusing on the people in the healthcare situations engaging with First Responders. Next question from the San Francisco chronicle. It pertains to the residents of laguna honda. Are they all being tested . Particularly the south floor unit. In my remarks i said we have a team of world experts assessing the situation right now. I am awaiting actionable recommendations from them. I will be debriefed today and every day Going Forward with regard to the recommendation. As soon as i receive the recommendations we will implement them wherever feasible and wherever possible. Next question from ron lynn of the l. A. Times. Can you tell us how many hospital as ic beds are in the city and how many are empty and how many are filled can coronavirus patients. We have 1300 medical surge beds where people with medical conditions or surgical issues would go. We have 1300 beds. We have p. M. 200i c. U. Beds in the city at this time. We are working to expand that. The capacity of those beds is greatly increased because we have taken early steps to do things such as ensure that elective surgeries and anything that could be postponed was postponed so our bed capacity is higher than it was before the pandemic started. With regard to coronavirus patients in the hospital, i do not have those specific numbers at this time to share. At this time we are monitoring the situation very carefully. Thank you. Question from the ap. She would like to understand testing in homeless shelters and the shelterworker population. Have they been tested and have many tested positive . I have been really clear and the mayor is clear. I think across the country local officials and mayors have been clear. We need more Testing Capacity. We need more testing materials. I am so proud of our Public Health team which tripled Testing Capacity from last week to this week. We have very short turnaround times. 24 to 48 hours which is key to better understand why people need to be freeing the hospitals if people do not need to be in the hospital. Now we are focusing on looking at the number of swabs that we have with regard to the Testing Capacity. Very basic supplies that we need as well as people need across the state and across the nation are really the limiting step at this time. We are focusing and will continue to focus testing efforts until we have more supplies on people who need the testing most. Those are people who are symptomatic with covid19 symptoms. People in close contact with those people and our healthcare workers and First Responders. I hope that as our testing sites increase across the city and as our capacity in terms of equipment increases that we will get the supplies necessary. I am waiting for more swabs to do more. Next set of questions for mr. This is from the mercury news. How many people have been offered hotel rooms but have declined . The current and initial deployment of hotel rooms were targeted 100 to individuals in the hospital to prepare the medical system to manage the medical surge. We have moved 123 individuals in. I believe in terms of number that declined it is less than 10. Again, 94 of those were homeless. That speaks to the next question from the associated press. Of last weeks 300 hotel rooms how many are filled by people who are homeless and what are the remaining percentage . 123 rooms are occupied by individuals who are covid19 positive and have no placetor selfquarantined. 94 of the 123 are homeless. Question from john king of the San Francisco chronicle. Will the hotels being contracted by the city to house First Responders and homeless be rehiring Hotel Employees to help attends to the new residents . It depends on the hotel. The citys desire is for the hotels that are providing meals with restaurants or kitchens that we fully deploy to provide meals to the individuals quarantined there. If the hotel does not have meals we have to arrange for meal delivery. It is a step we would like to avoid. It is up to the hotel and ownership on whether or not and of course employees if they would like to remain, but it is our full intention that we have these hotels staffed with again kitchen staff, general lobby staff, housekeeping to do general cleaning areas, not room cleaning and the like. It is important, of course, the primary goal is to provide a Public Health response to protect individuals but secondarily given the significant hits that the hospitality employees have taken to about them is an added benefit, of course. Clarification from nbc bay area confirms that as of now 23 individuals have been moved to the first hotel that came in line . No, 123. Next question. Chris. If a person in household is covid19 infected should they move to an sf hotel. Are there rooms set up for this type of stay and what rate . That is more of a medical question in terms how the Health System responds to families. I will refer to dr. Colfax. He will handle that when i am concluded. Are you able to temfolks tell folks the name of the hotels the city has contracts with . We have made a decision not to name the hotels for privacy of the individuals in the hotel as well as protecting and ensuring the negotiations moving forward with other hotels. We are not releasing names of hotels. Next questions are for chief scott. This is a question from maygan cassidy. How many officers or sworn staffers have tested positive and how many have been exposed or quarantined on your staff . We have had two officers test positive. We have had 53 quarantined. Some of those are back at work. We have been very fortunate working with the department of Public Health and the mayor and others who provided leadership early on. We hope we can continue to see this good fortune. We have not been severely impacted at this point. At this point only two. Follow up from sf gate. Do you have plans in plate for the a significant number of First Responders become ill. We do. We have seen other places around the country with this. We started with modifying our protocols, administrative units and officers that work those units were rotating in patrol to supplement. We modified the patrol schedule and have several models in the event we have significant short sage ages of personal. We have several models to go to. Depending on the shortages there are different models. We have modified deployment greatly included limited activity in terms of in Service Training is canceled. We shifted investigators to patrol duties, some supervisors that work investigative units are shifted to patrol duties to supplement patrol. We want to keep social distancing and not over crowd police stations. Yes we have models in event of shortages. Thank you. That concludes our press roughly five years, i was working as a high school teacher, and i decided to take my students on a surfing field trip. The light bulb went off in my head, and i realized i could do much more for my students taking them surfing than i could as their classroom teacher, and that is when the idea for the city surf project was born. Working with kids in the ocean that arent familiar with this space is really special because youre dealing with a lot of fear and apprehension but at the same time, a lot of excitement. When i first did it, i was, like, really scared, but then, i did it again, and i liked it. Well get a group of kids who have just never been to the beach, are terrified of the idea, who dont like the beach. Its too cold out, and its those kid that are impossible to get back out of the water at the end of the day. Over the last few years, i think weve had at least 40 of our students participate in the city surf project. Surfing helped me with, like, how to swim. Weve start off with about two to four sessions in the pool before actually going out and surfing. Swimming at the pool just helps us with, like, being, like, comfortable in the water and being calm and not being all not being anxious. So when we started the city surf project, one of the things we did was to say hey, this is the way to earn your p. E. Credits. Just getting kids to go try it was one of our initial challenges for the first year or two. But now that weve been doing it three or four years, we have a group of kids thats consistent, and the word has spread, that its super fun, that you learn about the ocean. Starting in the morning, you know, i get the vehicles ready, and then, i get all the gear together, and then, i drive and go get the kids, and we take them to a local beach. We usually go to linda mar, and then occasionally ocean beach. We once did a special trip. We were in capitola last year, and it was really fun. We get in a circle and group stretch, and we talk about specific safety for the day, and then, we go down to the water. Once we go to the beach, i dont want to go home. I cant change my circumstances at home, but i can change the way i approach them. Our program has definitely been a way for our students to find community and build friends. I dont really talk to friends, so i guess when i started doing city surf, i started to, like, get to know people more than i did before, and people that i didnt think id like, like, ended up being my best friends. Its a group sport the way we do it, and with, like, close camaraderie, but everybodys doing it for themselves. Its great, surfing around, finding new people and making new friendships with people throughout surfing. It can be highly developmental for students to have this time where they can learn a lot about themselves while negotiating the waves. I feel significantly, like, calmer. It definitely helps if im, like, feeling really stressed or, like, feeling really anxious about surfing, and i go surfing, and then, i just feel, like, im going to be okay. It gives them resiliency skills and helps them build selfconfidence. And with that, they can use that in other parts of their lives. I went to bring amy family o the beach and tell them what i did. I saw kids open up in the ocean, and i got to see them connect with other students, and i got to see them fail, you know, and get up and get back on the board and experience success, and really enjoy themselves and make a connection to nature at the same time. For some kids that are, like, resistant to, like, being in a Mentorship Program like this, its they want to surf, and then later, theyll find out that theyve, like, made this community connection. I think they provided level playing fields for kids to be themselves in an open environment. For kids to feel like i can go for it and take a chance that i might not have been willing to do on my own is really special. We go on 150 surf outings a year. Thats yearround programming. Weve seen a tremendous amount of youth face their fears through surfing, and that has translated to growth in other facets of their lives. I just think the biggest thing is, like, that they feel like that they have something that is really cool, that theyre engaged in, and that we, like, care about them and how theyre doing, like, in general. What i like best is they really care about me, like, im not alone, and i have a group of people that i can go to, and, also, surfing is fun. Were creating surfers, and were changing the face of surfing. The feeling is definitely akin to being on a roller coaster. Its definitely faster than i think you expect it to be, but its definitely fun. It leaves you feeling really, really positive about what that kids going to go out and do. I think its really magical almost. At least it was for me. It was really exciting when i caught my first wave. I felt like i was, like it was, like, magical, really. When they catch that first wave, and their first lights up, you know their face lights up, you know you have them hooked. I was on top of the world. Its amazing. I felt like i was on top of the world even though i was probably going two miles an hour. It was, like, the scariest thing id ever done, and i think it was when i got hooked on surfing after