As the city of San Francisco approaches its 5,000 confirmed case of COVID-19, probably sometime this week, Mayor London Breed and Director of Health Dr. Grant Colfax issued some grim predictions for the second half of the year, if infections do not decrease below.
San Francisco is potentially analyzing “a situation that reflects the challenges New York had” if the city’s infection rate of reproduction (Rt) does not drop below 1.0 where it was in May and early June, Colfax said. in a presentation on Monday. Looking at the data as of July 4, the city’s Rt metric is at 1.25.
“This is the slide that keeps me awake at night,” said Dr. Colfax while graphing projected hospitalization and infection rates through the end of the year. A median projection of hospitalizations, given the current rate of new infections, would put SF in a scenario with 830 COVID patients hospitalized on a given day in November.
“Let’s think about that for a minute,” he said, according to ABC 7. “In April, we peaked at 94 hospitalizations.”
The worst case scenario would see a peak of 6,000 seriously ill patients hospitalized with the coronavirus in early or mid-October.
Although an Rt of 1.25 does not seem high, it represents the possibility of exponential growth. A Rt below 1, which is currently only seen in Washington, DC, Arkansas, and several New England states, means that infections will drop and eventually drop to zero, although maintaining that will likely require a return to more draconian refuge measures.
The death toll in San Francisco remains relatively low compared to many cities in the United States, with only 50 deaths to date. However, Colfax gave the sobering news that the worst-case projection puts us at around 3,000 deaths in the next six months.
“These times are tough, but having a massive pandemic in our city is even worse,” said Colfax.
So much for the bars that reopen …
Related: COVID hospitalization rates are steadily increasing throughout the Bay Area
