Coronavirus
San Francisco to Impose New Lockdown on Sunday Night
San Francisco joined four other Bay Area counties and the city of Berkeley on Friday afternoon to announce a new lockdown ahead of a state mandate to preserve intensive care unit beds.
News
San Franciscans Told to Brace for Further Rollbacks as Hospitalizations Double in Days
“Our dangerous winter has arrived.” San Francisco Mayor London Breed warned as she told city residents that more rollbacks could come as early as Wednesday with the state and city preparing new orders to contain the worst surge yet in coronavirus infections.
“It’s not good,” she said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. “Cases are spiking. Hospitalizations are increasing quickly. Our infection rate is higher than it was at a point during the summer. And this isn’t just about San Francisco. It’s about our entire region, our state, our country. We’ve been worried for months, but now it’s real.”
Coronavirus
Officials: S.F. Businesses Should Brace for Purple Tier Rollback — Not if, but When
San Francisco remains on track to move out of the state’s COVID-19 red zone into the most restrictive purple zone within a matter of days, forcing new rollbacks on businesses and a late night curfew.
“The city will be required to roll back or reduce capacity of several activities within 24 hours” said Joaquin Torres, the director of the Office of Economic and Workforce development for San Francisco. He also laid out what will happen next.
Coronavirus
San Francisco May Be in Purple Tier by Sunday, Late-Night Curfew Likely Next Week
The number of new COVID-19 cases in the city has quadrupled since Oct. 12 amid the city’s worst surge in infections since the pandemic began. San Francisco Public Health Department Director Dr. Grant Colfax “Our current case rate places us on the trajectory to potentially be in the purple tier as early as Sunday,”
City Hall
Fall Coronavirus Surge Forces S.F. to Ban Indoor Dining, Other Activities Starting Friday
A significant fall surge in coronavirus infections has forced San Francisco to reverse course and reimpose limits on some businesses.
San Francisco Department of Public Health Executive Director Dr. Grant Colfax said this surge could be far worse than the surge in June shortly after Memorial Day. “In the past two weeks, from Oct. 21 through Nov. 5, our rate has increased from 3.7 per 100,000 people to nine per 100,000 residents. We are averaging nearly 80 new cases a day now, up from just 32 new cases at the end of October,” he said.
Arts & Culture
Lessons From S.F. Mime Troupe’s Move From Live Events to Radio Plays
The San Francisco Mime Troupe has been performing socially conscious and often very funny productions in Bay Area parks since 1959 and was preparing for its summer series of live shows when the COVID-19 pandemic made that impossible.
The Troupe has been releasing half-hour radio plays for the last 10 weeks and now, with the first series, “Tales of the Resistance,” coming to an end, we wanted to find out how the move from live to radio play has worked out.
“Civic” Podcast
Nurses in S.F. Department of Health Demand Thousands of Hours in Overtime Pay
During the pandemic, nurses have been given a lot of praise for the vital, frontline work they do, but some nurses working for San Francisco’s Department of Public Health would like to be paid the overtime they have put in. In a lawsuit against the city, several nurses claim that due to chronic understaffing, the public health department is forcing them to work overtime to cover the gap. They are demanding thousands of hours in back pay.
Elections
Insider Opposes $5.5 Billion State Bond to Fund Stem Cell Research
Proposition 14 asks California voters to approve a $5.5 billion bond to allow the institute to continue to provide grants for stem cell research, with the goal of creating new treatments for some of medicine’s most intractable problems. Jeff Sheehy has been a lonely voice on the board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, where he stands in opposition to the state ballot measure that would fund the organization for years to come.
Elections
City College Board Candidates Outline Plans for Coronavirus Crisis Recovery — November 2020
In this race, we asked candidates: “What are your top priorities for BART as the pandemic continues and after shelter-in-place orders are lifted?” Listen to their answers below.
Elections
State Senate Candidates Cite Fire, COVID-19 Recovery, Housing Among Priorities
“Civic” spoke with San Francisco candidates running for the state Legislature before the primary election on March 3. Since then, a great deal has happened, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the subsequent recession and the massive wildfires that have at times turned our skies orange. We are offering those original interviews as part of our election coverage, but wanted to give the candidates a chance to address what has happened since the primary. The candidates for State Senate in District 11 are Jackie Fielder and Sen. Scott Wiener.
