Board of Supervisors ratifies local health emergency to extend COVID-19 health orders

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on March 10 voted to ratify the Department of Public Health (DPH) health officer's March 6 declaration of a local health emergency regarding COVID-19, a move supervisors said is necessary to allow the city's health officer to issue narrowly tailored public-health orders beyond the seven-day automatic emergency period.

DPH Health Officer Dr. Thomas Aragon told the board the local-health-emergency declaration is designed for urgent situations where immediate action is required and explained that the statute underlying the declaration grants narrowly defined public-health powers, typically limited to seven days unless renewed by the board. "When there is an immediate emergency, sometimes a health officer needs to declare a health emergency," Aragon said, noting the law was written to allow immediate measures and then require board approval to continue them.

The board's ratification was taken as an imperative item because the health order and declaration had been issued after the meeting agenda was posted. The roll-call vote on the ratification showed 10 ayes and no nos; the clerk recorded supervisors Mandelmann, Mar, Peskin, Preston, Ronan, Safaie, Stephanie, Walton, Yi and Feuer as voting yes and noted Supervisors Haney and Fewer were absent for portions of the meeting. The board took the required Brown Act and sunshine ordinance findings before conducting the vote.

Why it matters: The ratification extends the legal footing for the health officer to issue specific orders such as limiting visits to long-term care facilities, restricting mass gatherings and requiring disclosures to support treatment and public-health operations. Aragon emphasized the orders must be "very specific to health" and justified with a public-health rationale. He also said the emergency declaration can be renewed beyond the initial seven days via action of the board, similar to local emergency renewals.

What supervisors asked: Supervisors pressed Aragon on the scope and limits of his authority, how the declaration interacts with the mayor's citywide state of emergency, and whether orders could be extended to private venues and regional coordination. Aragon said health-officer powers are broad for communicable-disease control but restrained in practice by the need to choose the "least restrictive" measures that will protect public health and that DPH has been consulting with the city attorney about the legal basis for orders such as limiting visitors to long-term-care facilities.

Next steps: With the board's ratification, DPH and the mayor's office said they would continue to issue and refine specific health orders intended to slow transmission of COVID-19 while working with legal and operational partners to implement measures that target the most critical risks.

Ending: Board President Yee and supervisors urged continued cooperation with the mayor's office, the city's emergency operations center and regional partners as San Francisco moved into a period of heightened public-health activity and parallel planning for economic impacts.