LATEST June 30, 1:30 p.m. San Francisco Mayor London Breed is appealing to San Franciscans to stay home for the Fourth of July to help curb the spread of coronavirus.
“The Fourth of July is normally a time to gather and celebrate with family, friends and neighbors. Unfortunately these are not normal times, and these types of gatherings are the environments in which COVID-19 spread,” said Mayor Breed in a press release. “It is critical that all of us continue to follow the Health Orders designed to protect our safety. Please think carefully and act responsibly this weekend.”
On Monday, official fireworks shows across the Bay Area were canceled to discourage large gatherings of spectators.
June 30, 1:00 p.m. In its Budget and Fiscal Update for FY 2021-2022, the SFMTA outlined survey results regarding how ridership might change in the near and long-term future for public transit. The agency expects to see a baseline 20% ridership drop going forward, attributed to a rise in permanent remote work prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.
The update also outlined survey results compiled from 25,000 adults. Researchers found that 20% of respondents who used buses and public transit regularly before the outbreak said they now now longer would, and 28% said they would use these services less often. Additionally, more than 50% of respondents said they “would either use these less or stop using [rideshare options] completely.”
As a result, the SFMTA is planning accordingly. “Do not expect to return to the transit system you were used to before,” the budget update notes. “We will continue to transform transit and move Muni Forward.”
June 30, 12:30 p.m. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday the state has procured 15,679 hotel and motel rooms as part of an initiative to house people living on the street during the coronavirus pandemic.
Project Roomkey launched in April as the first of its type in the country and as of today 85% of those rooms are in use and 14,200 have been housed, the governor said.
Newsom explained the program provides, “a room, a key, a lock” for people living in their cars, in shelters, in encampments, or on the street.
The governor said he signed the state’s budget on Monday and it includes an additional $1.3 billion for cities and counties to support homeless programs such as Project Roomkey. The funding will also help support a new program called Project Home Key that will allow the state to not only lease but acquire longterm housing for people on the streets.
June 30, 12:20 p.m. Rent is due tomorrow and some San Francisco landlords don’t want the new COVID-19 Tenant Protections Ordinance to stop them from collecting it.
On Monday, four landlord and realtor groups filed a lawsuit against the city to obtain a temporary restraining order that would suspend the law immediately, according to KQED.
The ordinance was signed by Mayor London Breed last Friday, permanently prohibiting a residential landlord from pursuing an eviction for nonpayment of rent due to COVID-19 from April through July.
Read more from SFGATE Editor Tessa McLean.
June 30, 12:10 p.m. The U.S. is “going in the wrong direction” with the coronavirus surging badly enough that Dr. Anthony Fauci told senators Tuesday some regions are putting the entire country at risk — just as schools and colleges are wrestling with how to safely reopen.
With about 40,000 new cases being reported a day, Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said he “would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around.”
“I am very concerned,” he told a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.
Infections are rising rapidly mostly in parts of the West and South, and Fauci and other public health experts said Americans everywhere will have to start following key recommendations if they want to get back to more normal activities like going to school.
“We’ve got to get the message out that we are all in this together,” by wearing masks in public and keeping out of crowds, said Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Read more here.
June 30, 11:50 a.m. An NPR report Tuesday outlines two methods for fighting COVID-19.
One is the mitigation method, which consists of testing symptomatic people and employing contact tracing and isolation with a target of a positive test rate of under 10%. The other is the suppression method, which involves testing asymptomatic people in high-risk environments, contact tracing and isolation with a targeted test rate of under 3%.
Currently, 32 states, including California, have not achieved mitigation or suppression. California would need to conduct 824,901 daily tests, or 2,088 per 100,000 people, but is currently averaging 92,858 tests per day, or 235 per 100,000 people.
Read more at NPR.
June 30, 11:30 a.m. San Quentin Prison, which now has over 1,000 cases of the coronavirus, has relocated infected prisoners to air-conditioned triage tents outside to keep them away from uninfected prisoners. Some who are critically ill have been taken to local hospitals, KTVU reports.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is facing criticism for not responding to the outbreak fast enough. Last month, there were zero cases at the prison. By Tuesday morning, there were 1,080 cases in prisoners and 102 in employees. The outbreak is believed to have begun when 100 inmates were transferred from a prison in Southern California to San Quentin.
The CDCR is hoping to mitigate the spread by releasing up to 3,500 more non-violent inmates who have six months or fewer remaining on their sentence.
June 30, 10:05 a.m. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and Public Health Department held a joint meeting Monday with the San Jose City Council to preview the county’s new reopening plan that will be released later this week.
Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody discussed the transition from a sector-to-sector reopening plan to a risk-aversion plan.
“In this new phase we hope to create a framework that people will be able to live within for a long time to offer clarities on how to stay as safe as possible while doing the things we all need to do, and to create more certainty about the path ahead,” Cody said.
The new plan will include across-the-board guidelines for all open businesses, with some more restrictive guidelines for higher-risk activities that will be applicable for the long-term. This also means that some businesses will be deemed too high-risk to open up for the time being.
Bay City News contributed to this story.
June 30, 9:30 a.m. The mayors of the Bay Area coastal towns of Pacifica and Half Moon Bay told KPIX they want out-of-towners to stay home on the Fourth of July.
“Let’s start off with the fact that we are a tourist town, and that we totally embrace tourists coming to Half Moon Bay,” Mayor Adam Eisen told KPIX. “I get the allure of the beach, but you know, then you want to flip it and say, ‘I’ve got people in the community, constituents that are literally fearful of their lives, as we’ve seen droves of people come at an unprecedented level.’”
“As people are parking in neighborhoods there are elderly people, in particular, that are very fearful to even walk out of their house,” Pacifica Mayor Deirdre Martin chimed in.
June 30, 9:10 a.m. California announced a record number of new COVID-19 cases Monday, reporting nearly 8,100 new infections. Cases are surging and an LA Times analysis predict cases in June will be roughly double those in May.
Gov. Gavin Newsom noted the number of cases has increased 45% in seven days and the state’s positivity rate — the number of people who have tested positive divided by the total number of tests administered — has gone from 4.4% to 5.5% in two weeks. (Read more from Newsom’s Monday press briefing on SFGATE).
Newsom said “5.5% is of concern. It’s not where some other states that are generating headlines are. They’re substantially higher, but we don’t like the trend line, and that’s why, again, this mandatory mask requirement is in effect, and that’s why, unfortunately, we’re using this dimmer switch to start to pull back on the stay-at-home order.”
June 30, 7:15 a.m. A 27-year-old Southern California man is sharing his family’s experience with coronavirus to encourage people to practice social distancing.
Richard Garay told KTLA he was the first in his family to contract COVID-19 and now 27 other members have tested positive. Garay’s 60-year-old father died of the virus the day before Father’s Day.
“It was painful to watch my dad’s health decline so drastically in front of me,” Garay told KTLA. “My father is my best friend.
“I don’t want my father’s death to be in vain,” he said. “I want people to understand coronavirus is a real thing.”
Coronavirus in the greater Bay Area: Links you need
COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENTS
Alameda County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.
Contra Costa County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.
Lake County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.
Marin County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.
Monterey County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.
Napa County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.
San Benito County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.
San Francisco County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.
San Mateo County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.
Santa Clara County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.
Santa Cruz County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.
Solano County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.
Sonoma County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.
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4 Bay Area counties pause reopening. Here’s where all 9 stand.
Will Bay Area schools reopen in-class this fall?
Spike in coronavirus comes with economic reopening in California