A real disparity. Early on in our responses to covid 19 we created a field care clinic at the Community Health crepter to bring testing to people. Recently we announced the opening of a testing site of a latino testing hub. Im excited to announce an expansion that will bring test to go areas of the city that have been especially hit hard. To do this, were going to make three major expansions. First, we will expand our city tests site by adding four hundred new slots a day where we can continue to on focusing on essential workers who need testing the most. Our fire fighters, police officers, Health Care Workers and people who are taking care of San Francisco. We will launch two mobile pop up sites that can test up to two hundred fifty people per day. One will start this week, the other next week. They will rotate to different neighborhoods in the city that are seeing high rates of covid 19 and need more testing options. Third, were creating a third city test sf site at the south east of the city. The location is still being developed with community input. It should launch in august with the ability to begin tests five hundred people per day. In total well have an a additional fourteen hundred testing slots per day. Thats nearly a 45 increase over what weve been averaging over the last week. This new testing along with the requirement for private partner it do their part will help us make testing more easily available especially for symptomatic or high risk individuals. Resources for people to test positive, right to recover, hotel room it isolate. Those are all the things we need to go hand in hand with our testing capacity. To find out more information on how to get tested please go to the website or call 311. Im really proud of the work were doing to expand testing in San Francisco. We know that we cant test our way out of this pandemic. We need people to be responsible. To keep their distance from others to avoid gathers, and to wash their hands. Getting testing is not a passport to do whatever you want. You can still get infected at any moment. When i see people acting irresponsibly or on some of our busiest commercial corridors, im really disappointed. What youre doing when you gather with friend friends and t waring a mask. Youre making our recovery longer, youre making it more difficult for kid it go back to school. Youre making it more difficult for folks to visit senior homes. More difficult for people to get back to work. Our nail salons and barbershops. Massage and tattoo parlors and things like that. You are making things more difficult for others not just yourself. I know its hard. Im tired of living in this covid 19 world just like you are. The sooner we can act responsibly, the sooner we can get back together in a more real way. At this time id like to introduce dr. Grant c olfax. good afternoon, thank you, mayor. Im dr. Grant director of health for the city of San Francisco. As the current surge continues our reopening plans must remain on pause. Last week, we told you that it took us 38 days to go from 2000 to 3000 cases. Its taken thirteen days to go from three thousand to four thousand. We are averaging seventy nine new cases everyday diagnosed. We know there are more cases out there as the virus continues to spread. These numbers put us in the red zone of one of our key health indicators. As of tomorrow well have been in that red zone for a month. Since monday San Francisco has been on the state watch list that restricts reopening. The reason for the watch list is our rapid increase in hospitalization. We remain on high alert. Our goal is to keep the rate of hospitalizations of covid 19 patients to less than 10 . In San Francisco we can slow the spread of covid 19. We have flattened the curve before. We must do it again. Lives are at stake. You know what to do. Wear face coverings out side of your hous household. Stay six feet apart from others and avoid gatherings. While you do your part, the city is doing its part too. The testing expansion is one of our strategies. Its an important one and especially paired with contact tracing, it can help us contain covid 19. But testing alone will not bring us out of the red zone. Id like to talk today about the role of testing in our citys pandemic response. Five months ago San Francisco had never conducted a single test for covid 19. On an average day this month, we conducted more than three thousand. Building our testing infrastructure has been a tremendous effort that involves hiring staff, ordering supplies, deploying testing sites across the city. A severe lack of federal leadership has made testing a significant challenge across the challenge. Faced with limited resources San Francisco prioritized testing for the people with greatest needs. Its important to understand that the testing universe is much larger than the tests that people are seeking out for themselves. We test all residents and staff in San Franciscos Skilled Nursing facilities. We test as part of out break response in many studies across the cities. We test all people with symptoms and hospitals and clinics. Because of the strategy we have been able to slow down the spread of the virus. And we are doing well compared to other places. San francisco has the lowest rate of covid 19 cases and deaths and the highest rate of testing. I will say that again. San francisco has the lowest rate of covid 19 cases and death and highest rate of testing when compared to other jurisdictions including los angeles, seattle, denver, boston, new york, and other big cities. Therefore we have a foundation to build upon and we are doing exactly that. Today demand for testing is growing because were experiencing a surge for demand for testing and surge in cases. Its getting harder for individuals to book an appointment and taking longer to get test results. As we expand capacity, we must target our effort. We are not going to test our way out of the pandemic. This is an important point, test sg a limited resource and we must use it wisely by focusing on people who are most likely to be exposed, we increase our ability to find cases. Through contact tracing, we can further reduce exposure and spread. Testing is not prevention. A positive test means that the virus has already spread. And a negative test is not a passport to take risks or it to do whatever you want. We have a vision of realizing universal access to testing in San Francisco. But we cannot get there alone. A surge is making our circumstances more challenging all around. Private providers need to do their share. The city is conducting nearly two thirds of all covid 19 test tg right now. We know that many of the people seeking testing from the city have private insurance. That is why we have issued a health order requiring businesses to test people with symptoms and those with contacts and those residents at highest risk of exposure. This order aligns with the state which is requiring that insurance plans cover testing. Represent only 15 of the citys population. In addition workers must leave their homes to take on more risk are getting sicker in greater numbers. And the neighborhoods in the eastern and southeastern side of the city continue to have a higher rate of cases. The surge is making all of these disparities worse. In the past two weeks, we have expanded testing in the mission, bay view, tender loin and sunny veil neighborhood. We administered twenty two hundred tests to date. In the weeks to come we will continue to expand test inning the south east and deploy mobile testing in neighborhoods that need it most. And well continue to prioritize people with symptoms, people referred to testing by contact tracers and workers that are greatest risk of exposure. Such as first responders, disaster workers, and Health Care Workers. While the city is doing all of this, here is what san franciscans can do. If a Contact Person reaches out to you to say you might have been exposed to covid 19. Please take that call. Contract tracers can help you track your symptoms and get tests and get you resources like food and cleaning supplies if you need to isolate. If you have a Health Care Provider, please try to book your testing with them. That will help the people with out insurance, Health Care Workers and people most effected by the pandemic. And of course, if you are feeling sick, please stay at home. If youre not feeling sick and going out, you must cover your face. Stay six feet away from people out side your household and please, please avoid gathering. Gatherings are part of whats driving our current surge. If you are gathering with people who dont think they are sick or dont look sick, that doesnt matter. You can still transmit covid 19 without symptoms. Even if people have gotten a negative test recently, that doesnt mean they are negative that day. We have seen increases in covid 19 precisely because people are gathering more. This is a critical time for all of us to come together as one community. Take the precautions as we have asked for many weeks now. We can all do our part. Ask your Health Care Provider for a test. If you have symptoms, have been instructed by a contact tracer or at higher risk for exposure because of your living or working continues. Lets show the world that San Francisco can flatten the curve again and resume our ohmings ops together. Thank you. thank you madam mayor, and thank you doctor for your time. Today we have a few health care and testing related questions for director c olfax. Thank you director the first set of questions are from michelle king. Is San Francisco going to start fining people for not wearing masks. Will they set up a test line. were looking for ways to increase enforcement across the city. We know from Public Health work that the best way to get people to comply with doing whats right in this situation including wearing the face coverings, its really chaifnged the social norm, the messengers are trusted Community Members who provide the support and information needed and in cases, the actual facial coverings so people can cover their faces and take the right steps. At the same time we are looking at enforcement options not so much at the individual level but looking and ensuring that were working to increase enforcement across the city of various institutions that may not be complying with health orders. We really need to protect each other so that we protect others. thank you where does the city stand on hair salons similar to people meeting outdoors such as restaurants. certain outdoor personal services. Were taking a look at that. Were reviewing the criteria and will make a derptio determinatid when those personal services can be opened outdoors and with the state guidelines. thank you. The la times. What lessons are we learning from new yorks experience with the pandemic. i think there are two things. Certainly we have learned from the new york situation how bad it can get and how rapidly it can get bad. When we look at the mortality rates when the Health Care Systems got overwhelmed. We can see sophisticated and Health Care Systems, when they get overwhelmed, more people get sick and more people die. Its impossible to take care of people in those situations. When we talk about the surge, im very concerned as cases increase, its plausible we can get in a new york type of situation in the late summer or early fall. Thats why everyone need it do their part to flatten the curve. The second part that weve learned from new york is that its possible to flatten the curve with the facial coverings and social distancing and high general staying at home that we encourage. I hope we can do that before a massive surge. New york has unfortunately had to do that after a surge. with regards to our private partners doing their part, what are we talking about . What are we asking of them . How are we holding them accountable . when talks about private partners. From the beginning of the pandemic weve been working with Health Care System as cross the city to ensure a unify response. Its really strengthened our ability for instance, to ensure people with covid 19 are getting the best care possible in the Health Care Facilities across the city. What we need to do with regard to testing is ensure that low barrier testing is provided to people per the health order from the many Health Care Systems across the si city. We know San Francisco is fortunate and most people have insurance and a provider that is covered by a health care entity. Per the health order the requirements are there so low barrier testing is provided particularly for people with symptoms, people with a known close exposure, close contact with a covid 19 positive person. For people what have been asked to get a test per the health department. There are a lots of opportunities that we hope will be opened up through this health order. City has done 60 of the covid 19 testing to date. In order to realize this vision of expanded testing, we need all providers to do more. thank you dreghtor. Director. Do you believe that private testing labs are keeping up with the ever growing need for city wide testing . part of our goal is to encourage providers an providerh care systems to expand their testing just as the mayor announced today. Were investing in more testing so do other Health Care Systems across the city. Theres the meeting demand for testing and prioritizing the neighborhoods for demand for testing. We need to do our part there. Theres the situation where labs are getting behind in terms of processing tests. To a large extent thats a national and state issue because the large lab entities that are processing these specimens are getting further and further hand. We all need to Work Together to ensure that labs are turning tests around as quickly as possible so we can flatten the curve by dpettin getting tests e quickly. thank you. What are the turn around time for test results in san fran francisco. testing turn around time varies demanding on where people get tested and the capacity of wherethe capacity of the lab of where those specimens are going. In some cases the specimens can be turned around within 72 hours but were seeing back ups especially with our provider labs and some of our own labs within the city. We are backing up seven days, ten days at this point. Thats something were seeing across the state and across the country. thank you director. Thank you madam mayor and dr. C olfax for your time. Any followup questions or questions after this meeting can be directed to dem press at sf dot org. Thank you for your time and that concludes todays press conference. thank this meeting wilo order. Welcome to the july 23, 2020 meeting of the Public Safety and neighborho
vimarsana.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.