In the latest effort to slow a post-Thanksgiving surge in coronavirus infections, San Francisco has issued a strict quarantine order. San Francisco Department of Public Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax announced the decision Thursday.
“We are issuing a travel order effective tomorrow, Friday morning at 12:01 am.,” he said. “The travel order will require anyone traveling, moving or returning to San Francisco from outside the 10-county Bay Area to quarantine for 10 days.”
The quarantine requirement applies to visitors, people moving to San Francisco and returning residents. It includes exceptions for medical professionals, first responders, essential workers and others.
“We also strongly discourage any non-essential travel within the Bay Area region at this time,”said Colfax. “Please stay home this holiday season and celebrate with people in your immediate household.”
Anyone violating the order could be charged with a misdemeanor. People traveling through San Francisco International Airport and Oakland International Airport who are not staying in the Bay Area are not affected. All other exceptions can be found here. The city defines the Bay Area as consisting of San Francisco, Marin, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties.
The order comes as San Francisco’s intensive care unit bed capacity fell below 15% to just 13%. Colfax said an earlier round of restrictions weren’t enough.
“San Francisco, along with five other Bay Area counties adopted the stay at home order proactively on Dec. 4, in the hopes of adequately slowing the spread of Covid-19 and preventing an ICU-bed shortage,” he said. “Unfortunately, despite our efforts, this has not happened.”
Since Thanksgiving, cases have increased by 50%, according to Colfax, who said residents must stay home to avoid another holiday surge and prevent hundreds of needless deaths in the New Year.
“Right now, San Francisco is better off than some of our regional neighbors, but we are all interconnected,” he said. “We know infection rates outside the Bay Area are much higher than in San Francisco, or the surrounding region.”
“Nationally, 47 of 50 states currently have higher COVID-19 case rates than San Francisco, ranging from almost twice as high in Virginia, to almost seven times as high in parts of the Midwest, he added. So while we in San Francisco are in a grave situation, other places are, unfortunately, even worse off. This means people who travel outside of San Francisco and visitors who come from other areas are at much higher risk of being infected and spreading the virus.”
“As we head into this holiday season, and with cases still accelerating at a staggering rate, we want to take every step possible to slow the spread,” he said.
