STD cases have plunged during COVID - but not because people aren't having sex FacebookTwitterEmail A phlebotomist draws blood for HIV testing at Magnet Health Center in San Francisco Calif. on Thursday, Aug. 9, 2012. Magnet recently celebrated 9 years in the Castro District and expects to test 12,000 people for HIV in 2012.Alex Washburn / Reports of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, appear to have dropped sharply in the Bay Area in 2020. But public health officials fear it’s not because people stopped having sex during the pandemic — it’s because STD testing was pushed aside while everyone’s attention was on COVID-19. In other words: People were still getting STDs, but many of them didn’t know it.