Transcripts For SFGTV Mayors Press Availability 20240713 : v

SFGTV Mayors Press Availability July 13, 2024

Convening the closed session. [roll call] clerk mr. Chair, you have a quorum, and so the board will now go into the closed session. So your instructions are to hang up on this call, essentially, click the red button, and then go into the calendar, the closed session, and then separate log into that meeting. Clerk yes, mr. Chair. Thank you very much. Does anyone have questions on that . Roberta, you may need to change the outlook invitation so that we can start the meeting early. Its not scheduled until 4 30. Clerk okay. Very good. Okay. So look for that, folks, and please log in within, lets say, the next five minutes. So to the members of the public watching, thank you for accommodating this unique format and showing the resilient city that we are. All right. Thank you. Well move into closed session. Good afternoon, everyone. Im San Francisco mayor london breed. Im joined today by the director of Public Health, dr. Grant colfax, as well as the director of the department of Emergency Management mary ellen carroll, the police chief bill scott. The director of the department of Human Services, trent rhorer. And the department of homelessness and housing, abigail stewartkhan. I want to thank you for tuning in today and joining us to talk about a few updates we have related to covid19 here in San Francisco. As of today, we have 1,013 total cases of those who have been diagnosed with covid19. And sadly, we have lost 17 people. There are 17 people who died as a result of this virus as of today. As a reminder, you can visit data sf. Org for the full tracker with information on what who has been diagnosed, the number of tests and other resources that are available or any questions you may have. And i want to just start today by reminding us really how far weve come from the very beginning. Weve made it our mission to slow the spread of this virus, to help those vulnerable populations, to keep people safe and were continuing to do all we can to do just that. Were still dealing with the number of cases in San Francisco and we also know that there will continue to be challenges and we will continue to see increases in the number of cases of the coronavirus as we continue to do testing. You know, it may seem like this will never end, but it will come to an end. And i want to be clear that although you may hear about San Francisco and how well were doing, that we are flattening the curve, now is definitely not the time to let up. I read a really great article in the San Francisco chronicle this weekend that talked about the spanish flu in 1918. Almost 100 years ago in september of 1918, the flu, the spanish flu hit San Francisco real hard and the city that we know and love, the resilient San Francisco, stepped up, reacted, closed schools, closed churches, required people to wear masks as this particular virus killed millions of people throughout the world and in the united states. Over 500,000 americans and 50 Million People worldwide. And so as San Francisco started to see based on its quick action, there were changes and we started to basically they probably didnt call it flattening the curve at that time, but thats exactly what they did. As the number of cases and deaths declined in november of 1918, they declared victory and went out in the streets, they party, they celebrated. Everyone was happy. They threw off their masks and moved on with their lives. And two days later, almost 2000 people died. And in addition to that, they dealt with this real challenge all the way into 1919 when people continued to be infected. The virus came back with a vengeance. And, unfortunately, it did take some time to get people back into a place of complying with the orders in order to try to protect Public Health. The gains they had made on the front end were all basically lost because they moved too quickly. And i tell that story about history to remind us that we need to look at what has happened in history to make sure that were not repeating the same mistakes. We are not asking you to shelter indoors, to stay at home and also expect that, you know, this is something that is comfortable for all of you. We know this is very challenging. That it has a Significant Impact on not only our physical health but our Mental Health. And yesterday i, with a doctor, we hosted a webinar to talk about our Mental Health and the challenges with family, with children, with isolation and with a number of things. And we wanted to make sure we had a resource available to the public to deal with that. Anyone can log on or call 311. If there is any information that you may need or someone to talk to during this very challenging time because the fact is its not over. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. We will get through this, but it is going to require time and its going to require patience like never before. I dont believe anyone on this earth has ever experienced anything like this before. As i said, the spanish flu was over a century ago. And here we are dealing with a pandemic of the same proportion. And i know that you would think that, especially in a place like San Francisco where we have cpmc and kaiser and ucsf and San Francisco general and all of these incredible hospitals and Research Labs and doctors and all of this great science and technology that 100 years later we should not be in a situation we are in where were requiring people to stay at home. But the fact is we are. Public health is in jeopardy. And because of your work and your compliance with this order, we have done a great job and maintaining even as we see the number of cases increase every day, even as we see the number of, sadly, deaths continue to increase. Were still in a better place and it has everything to do with the people of San Francisco for the most part complying with the orders. Now is not the time to let up and get comfortable. Especially as we see the weather has gotten a lot better. Everyone probably wants to go outside and hang out. They want to see friends, family. Unfortunately, this is not the time to let up. And were still in this. We still need to get through this. And we still need your cooperation to do just that. I want to express again my appreciation. Of course, do what you can to get your fresh air and take your walks. Make sure youre taking care of our Mental Health as well, because that is also a critical thing that we will need do in order to get through this together. So thank you again for cooperating and i want to talk a little bit today about the future. And what you know San Francisco looks like as we begin to reopen our city. I want to be clear, we dont know when that is going to be, but what we do know, its going to be different than what it was before. The governor talked about in his press conference yesterday that there will be changes and we need to prepare for those changes, because we wont be completely out of the woods as it relates to this virus even as we gradually may reopen the city. There is still a twoyear time period almost before we could even maybe have a vaccine. And so we just have to be mindful that its important that we live in reality, we live in reality with what we have in terms of our capacity, in terms of our equipment, in terms of what we can do around testing and the kinds of things that are going to help support our communities. And also we marry that reality with science, with data, and we make good decisions in order to protect Public Health. And as we come out of this, what does that really look like . What are some of the things that were going to need to do to continue to protect the public . As i mentioned before, we have Incredible Health institutions here in San Francisco and many of you are familiar with ucsf and amazing doctors and clinicians and researchers, the work they do is world renowned in terms breakthrough science data. In fact, one of the things weve been talking about, is contacttracing. Because part of what we want to be able to do once someone is diagnosed, its easy to, of course, check in on their family and the people that are immediately around them and to test them. That has been happening already here in the city. We reach out to the folks that theyve connected with or may have been in touch with. And the way that our contracttracing contacttracing system has been set up will provide us another tool to expand our capacity so that we can do more outreach to not only find out exactly who that patient has been in contact with, but we can also check on them, check on their symptoms and with increasing our Testing Capacity because they go handinhand we can have people tested. We can have people tested that may have been in contact with someone who has been infected. Because our goal is to chase down all of those people and to either help them if they are covid and get them into quarantine, or to basically give them the relief that they are not infected. And, of course, to continue the social distancing and other things necessary to keep people safe and to keep themselves safe. So contacttracing is something were launching and what is amazing about this work, a lot of students at ucsf, some of our Disaster Service workers with San Francisco, some of our librarians and other city workers will be trained to do this work. And there will be an app to help facilitate this. The app will allow people to keep track of their symptoms and to check in with people who are monitoring their condition. And also determine whether or not they should or should not be tested. And i want to take this opportunity to really thank again ucsf and there is a couple of other folks. I think dr. Colfax will talk a little bit about the partners that we have in this particular effort, but i really would like to thank the folks who have come together with us to prepare this contacttracing system and the apps and the work necessary in order to ensure that we are really getting to the bottom of those who are infected and helping to support them. And we have done some level of that in our shelter at msc south. This is how we were able to discover so many cases. The department of Public Health set up a system there and they were able to test people quickly and based on the two initial individuals who were tested positive, we were able to trace their steps back to this particular shelter and do the work necessary in order to identify the people who they had been in contact with, which led to what we have seen as it relates to m. S. C. South. Again, thank you to the department of Public Health. Thank you to our city team. Thank you to ucsf and your medical staff. I want to also just talk a little bit about our plans to expand testing, because, again, contacttracing as well as testing go handinhand. Increasing our Testing Capacity. We talked about that on monday. We do want to appreciate ucsf for their willingness to run the tests, but the biggest challenge they and so many other folks throughout the country have had are access to the appropriate swabs in order to initiate the test in the first place. And we want to appreciate just so many incredible public and private partners that weve been working with to try and make Testing Available as much as possible. Many of you know that we provided city test s. F. On our peers with the partnership with the port to help get City Employees tested as quickly as possible. The feedback from City Employees is incredible. The response and the ability, you get your time, you go in, you get tested and you get your results back quickly. People are so appreciative of that. So i just want to, again, appreciate and thank the department of Public Health and the work theyre doing with the private sector as well to get these tests up and running. Today, we want to announce in addition to pier 30 and 32, we want to announce another site. Theyre working with the office and the department of Public Health to create city test s. F. In soma. So the goal is to increase our capacity, although i want to be clear this is not someplace you can walk up to. You have to meet the criteria in order to be tested. We just want to able to test people more quickly, get the results back quickly, so that we can make sure that people are prepared to do what is necessary to, of course, quarantine or give back to some sort of plan with their lives as they know it. So, for example, if there is a person who works here at the Emergency Operation center, or there is a person who works at the San Francisco general and they all of a sudden wake up, maybe with a fever and a cough, even though theyre essential city workers, they cant go to work once they exhibit symptoms. So instead of waiting days or weeks to either get tested or to get a response, our goal is to test them almost immediately and to get the tests back as quickly as possible, because if they are not covid19positive, we want them to be able to go back to work as quickly as possible because theyre essential city workers. So that is the whole point of why were expanding Testing Capacity for our city workforce, because we need them in our hospitals, our hotels, on the streets, driving our buses and all of the things that we see so many of them doing. Again, i just want to continue to take the opportunity when possible to thank the incredible workforce in San Francisco. The fact is when i say these people are putting their lives on the line, that is not an understatement. They are putting their lives on the line when they step on the buses and hundreds of thousands of people get on the buses every single day. Theyre putting their lives on the line when, for example, our paramedics have to go out and be physical with someone with someone whose life theyre trying to safe. Theyre putting their lives on the line when they walk in the door to serve patients. They truly are the folks who are showing up in the hotels and working with the vulnerable homeless population. The people who are showing up to laguna honda and continuing to make sure those patients are clean and fed and well taken care of every single day. And i just want to express again my appreciation for the work that so many incredible City Employees continue to do. We want to make sure that were taking care of them. That they have the p. P. E. That they need. That if necessary and they think theyre covid positive, theyre able to get testing immediately. Thats what this is about. Making sure our workforce is prioritized in a way that they are not necessarily put in a situation where they have to choose to just stay home rather than be an important part of our workforce. I also want to express that this Testing Capacity will be made available to people who may not have insurance. People who basically think theyre positive and they dont know what they should do, especially if they dont have insurance. They can call 311 and we will make sure that we connect them with someone who can talk to them about their symptoms and refer them to a testing site. I want to also be clear that with our contacttracing and testing for people who are part of our immigrant community, that this data, this information and what we do here will in no way be shared with anyone. So i dont want you to have any fear about ice or any other federal resource coming in and trying to obtain this personal information and data because we have got to do everything we can to make sure that access to testing, that contacttracing and what were trying to do in order to save lives and get to the bottom of this and treat people and help them determine if theyre covidpositive or not, we have to make sure people feel safe in revealing whatever information were asking for in doing this work. So i just wanted to assure you that this is for this purpose only. You dont have to be afraid if you think that you exhibit symptoms to call 311 and get referred so you can be tested. The other thing i wanted to talk about today finally is our economic recovery. This has been, i know for so many people, really, really very challenging. So today i was on the phone with the 13 mayors total who represent the largest cities in the state of california, with our u. S. Senator Kamala Harris talking about some of the federal stimulus packets and the new packets and the changes they need to make in order to make sure that were actually providing relief to people. So, for example, people who have filed taxes and have direct deposit have probably already received, today, their stimulus checks. But, unfortunately, the people who may not have a bank account wont get their check for maybe even another few weeks. And those are the kinds of things that are completely unacceptable. We know that people need money now. We know that people need groceries now. We know that people concerned about paying the rent, even though we have a moratorium on evictions, we know people are living in fear, people are scared, people dont know what to do when they dont have access to resources. And even though there are some people that are fortunate enough to be in a situation where they are financially going to be okay, there are so many san franciscans and people throughout this country who will not be okay. So give to s. F. Was what we started as a resource to provide support for food, for groceries in particular, through gift cards and through other resources to those who may not necessarily qualify for other services. And also subsidies and support around rent for people that we can provide support for. So weve raised private dollars into

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