San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/category/neighborhoods/page/2/)
In a pandemic that mandates physical distancing, survival in the poverty-suffused Tenderloin is endangered by relentlessly overcrowded conditions, a dearth of open public spaces and limited mobility. Neighborhood residents suffer the city’s second-highest rate of COVID-19 infections — eclipsed only by the Bayview — and five times that of neighboring Nob Hill.
When the shelter-in-place order went into effect in San Francisco to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Treasure Island was going into a different kind of isolation than the rest of San Francisco. The island has extremely limited public transit service, just one grocery store, no public school and experiences frequent blackouts.
A Mission District coronavirus testing initiative has shown stark disparities in who has been getting sick — 95% of those who tested positive in this initiative identified as Hispanic or Latinx. Most earned less than $50,000 a year. But evidence of this disparity had been mounting even prior to the testing, when doctors in San Francisco hospitals saw that the majority of the coronavirus patients who needed to be hospitalized were also Latino.
In late April, a coalition of medical, community and government organizations called Unidos en Salud tested nearly 3,000 people in one Mission District census tract for the new coronavirus. Sixty-two of them tested positive, slightly more than 2% of those tested. Among those testing positive, 95% identified as Hispanic or Latinx, though they made up only 44% of those tested.
San Francisco is closing several streets as part of an extension of the stay-home order in a move that addresses some criticism of a street-closure plan announced last week. The action applies to streets in Golden Gate and McLaren Parks. Last week, a Tenderloin street was also closed to through traffic.
San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman is pushing the city to designate up to five public sites for sanctioned homeless encampments in an effort to protect unhoused residents from COVID-19.
San Francisco’s Mission District has the highest number of COVID-19 infections, based on new data released on the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Data Tracker map.
Now more than 1,000 members strong, the Sunset Neighborhood Help Group is made entirely of volunteers and was sparked by just one person’s post offering to pick up groceries for those unable to leave their homes.
In less than two weeks,a well-meaning post in a neighborhood Facebook group has evolved into an extremely organized support system for an entire community during the time San Francisco’s COVID-19 shelter-in-place order is in effect.
Mission Local reporter Abe Rodriguez talks about the cons, and pros — easing traffic congestion and lessening air pollution — of the red bus-only lanes in the Mission District.