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San Francisco officials warn of third COVID-19 surge, urge no travel for holidays
Summary
Director Grant Colfax told the commission that cases and reproductive rates are rising in a third surge, the city moved to the state's red tier, and officials urged residents to avoid holiday travel while vaccine planning continues.
San Francisco's director of health, Grant Colfax, told the Health Commission the city is experiencing a third COVID-19 surge and urged residents to avoid holiday travel and indoor gatherings as cases and transmission increase.
Colfax gave data showing nearly 14,000 cumulative diagnosed cases in the city and 156 deaths to date. He said the city's new-case rate rose to 10.9 per 100,000 and the estimated reproductive rate is approximately 1.28, up sharply from recent weeks. Colfax said the city was running nearly 6,000 tests a day and a testing rate of about 6.9 per 1,000 residents, among the highest of comparable jurisdictions.
"This is not the year to travel," Colfax told commissioners, saying that colder weather, the holidays and pandemic fatigue are combining with national increases to make the current surge especially concerning. He listed actions already taken: closing indoor dining, pausing some school reopenings pending safety reviews, and moving to the state's red tier; he said San Francisco could move to the purple tier if case growth continues.
Colfax also emphasized that testing should not be used as a substitute for quarantine: a negative test is not a "passport" to avoid a 14-day quarantine after a high-risk exposure. Colfax said the department's public testing prioritizes symptomatic people, essential workers, those with high-risk exposures and people without other access to testing; he said about 55% of tests in the city are supported directly by the health department. The department opened a CityTestSF site in the southeastern part of the city to reach high-need neighborhoods.
On vaccines, Colfax said city teams are planning for local distribution but noted the absence of a fully formed national plan and said a presentation on vaccine distribution is scheduled for the commission's Dec. 15 meeting.
Commissioners asked about testing access for students and other travelers, quarantine enforcement (Colfax said quarantine is advisory and enforcement capacity is limited), and the demographics of new cases (Colfax said cases remain concentrated in the southeastern part of the city with continued disproportionate impacts on Latino residents though other neighborhoods are seeing rising cases as well).
