Tag Archives: San Francisco Bay Area

Bay Area’s contact tracers struggle amid coronavirus surge

San Francisco Chronicle, by Carolyn Said, July 20, 2020

In a photo taken with a telephoto lens, beachgoers gather at Robert W. Crown Memorial Beach on Tuesday, May 26, 2020, in Alameda, Calif. Most people maintained at least fifteen feet between groups. Photo: Noah Berger / Special to The Chronicle

Contact tracing — finding and notifying everyone who has had close contact with a person infected with the coronavirus — is key to stemming the pandemic. Once people learn they’ve spent time near someone who had the virus, they can get tested themselves and quarantine so they don’t infect others.

Bay Area county health departments ramped up in April and May to handle the laborious process, most of it armchair detective work by phone and email, not the high-tech surveillance some in Silicon Valley originally envisioned. But the recent surge in cases has made the task much harder, because there are more people to contact and because it takes longer to be tested and then get the results.

Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties all fall short of their goal of doing case investigations for 90% of the people who test positive, and then reaching out to 90% of the folks those people had close contact with while they were infectious.

Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties did not respond to requests for information.

When it comes to reaching contacts of the people who tested positive, the counties range from 70% to 80%, except for Contra Costa, which reaches only 26% of those who had contact with infected people, and Marin, which reached only 46% (its numbers are older). Still, those numbers are far better than those in New York and some other states.

“Obviously we want as many as possible because that’s where you get the most bang for your buck,” said Dr. George Rutherford, an infectious diseases expert at UCSF who spearheaded San Francisco’s contact-tracing program. But modeling shows that even reaching 43% of infected people’s contacts provides some disease suppression. “I think the spread would be worse without” contact tracing, even though it hasn’t reached its potential, he said.

Contra Costa County could not say why it is so far below the Bay Area norm, especially since it is closer than Alameda and San Mateo counties to meeting its contact tracing staff goal.

“We’ve been grappling with it,” said Erika Jenssen, deputy director of Contra Costa Health Services. “To do effective contact tracing, we need timely lab results for tests, adequate staffing and to partner with the community.”

She pointed to delayed test results as a major obstacle. While the median turnaround time in the county is four days, many results come in as late as 10 days after testing — by which time a person may not longer be infectious.

And it’s not just results that take a while: In parts of the Bay Area, some people must wait a week or more for a testing slot to open up.

The case investigations — interviews with newly diagnosed people — shed light on how the virus has spread since shelter-in-place orders were eased.

“We are seeing more people who were at some kind of gathering; that’s a common source of exposure,” Jenssen said. Contra Costa County investigators found that 18% of those who tested positive had attended large gatherings in the previous 15 days, while 17% had been to in-person workplaces. About 20% had visited restaurants, supermarkets and other stores.

Signs encourage wearing a mask at Lake Merritt in Oakland in June. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

Even counties that have maintained fairly high contact tracing numbers say they struggle with the surge.

Coronavirus, Covid 19, Positive test rate, San Francisco Bay Area, Solano County CA

Solano COVID test rate 2nd highest in Bay Area

July 16, 2020 Roger Straw

[BenIndy editor: The Chronicle’s 7-day test rate numbers match the daily 7-day average numbers recently released by Solano County through July 12. More recent numbers are available: Solano first released test numbers to the public on July 13, at 5.3%, increasing on July 14 to 6.7% and on July 15 to 7.3%. The Benicia Independent and others repeatedly requested Solano Public Health to release positive test rate information, and it took weeks for the County to finally add the 7-day average to its daily dashboard report. – R.S.]

Charts show how coronavirus positive test rates have roller-coastered in Bay Area counties

San Francisco Chronicle, by Kellie Hwang, July 16, 2020

As California reverses course this week and shutters many reopened businesses in the counties on its coronavirus watch list, one crucial metric guiding health officials’ decisions is the positive test rate.

That figure, which officials refer to as the “positivity rate,” is the percentage of tests conducted that come back positive for coronavirus. The state threshold for counties to reopen faster is 8% over a seven-day period. California’s current positive test rate sits at 7.1%, and the latest 7-day moving average for the U.S. is 8.7%.

Lee Riley, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley, said the positive test rate is one of several ways to assess the trajectory of the epidemic, along with hospitalizations and deaths.

“The public should care because if any of these parameters are increasing, they need to know why,” he said. “They need to know who is not wearing masks and what social gathering settings are contributing to the increased spread. Then, these behaviors can be targeted for correction.”

But what does the positive test rate look like across different regions of the Bay Area, where seven counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma — are on the watch list?

We examined what the average positive test rate was over the past two weeks for each county, and compared that to the historical trendline to see how things have changed over time. For a number of counties, the changes are quite stark.

Top of the list: Marin, Solano, Contra Costa

Marin County tops the list right now with an average rate of 12.9%, the third highest in the state over the past 14 days as of Tuesday afternoon. That number includes the outbreak at San Quentin State Prison, which now has more than 1,300 active cases. The prison had zero coronavirus cases through May until the transfer of prisoners from Chino to Marin County on May 30, which led to the rapid spread.

Marin County doesn’t include the prison statistics in its reporting, and instead listed a 14-day average positive test rate of 7.1% as of July 10. But the state and The Chronicle’s Coronavirus Tracker include the San Quentin cases, which are putting a strain on local hospitals and contributing to community spread, since prison workers have also become infected.

Both of those numbers are considerably higher than what Marin was averaging at the end of May, about 3.7%, before the outbreak at the prison. And the county’s rate was just 2% in early May. Marin County has seen outbreaks in skilled nursing facilities, growing cases among essential workers and within the county’s Latino population.

Solano County currently has the next highest positive test rate in the Bay Area, at 6.3% for the 14-day period. The state points to outbreaks among farmworkers who live in Solano County but work at Napa and Sonoma vineyards. Like many other places that are reopening, county officials have tied many cases to more in-person gatherings among individuals who don’t live in the same household.

Contra Costa County is third highest at 5.1% over the past 14 days. The state reports a rise in hospitalizations paralleling the increasing infections. The 7-day average was last reported at 7.8% on July 12, and in May, it never went higher than 3.8%. The county recently implemented a stricter face mask order requiring individuals dining on restaurant patios to keep face coverings on at all times except when actively eating or drinking.

Posting the lowest rates: San Francisco, Santa Clara

San Francisco has the lowest positive test rate of any Bay Area county at 2.1% for the 14-day period. The lowest average rate it has posted on a weekly basis was 1.1% in mid-June, and the highest was 4.3% in early May.

San Francisco has been cautious about reopening, waiting until June 12 to allow outdoor dining and indoor retail. Further expansions planned for late June and early July, including hair salons and indoor dining, have been postponed indefinitely.

“San Francisco was the first county to implement the lockdowns, so it had low rates to begin with,” Riley said. “I think they’ve been able to maintain these low rates also because people have accepted social distancing practices seriously.”

Santa Clara County is the second lowest at 2.5% for the past 14 days. While Santa Clara’s positive rate has remained well below the state threshold and the average rate hasn’t peaked above 3.3%, the county has seen an increase in hospitalizations, which prompted the state to place it on the watch list.

“Many of the cases identified in Santa Clara County are from long-term care facilities, who are more likely to develop severe disease requiring hospitalization,” Riley said. “The overall number of cases is not very high, but the proportion of people developing severe disease may be higher in this county than some of the other counties.”

The county reported its biggest daily case count of the pandemic, 258, on July 8. Essential businesses in food service and construction have recently been tied to outbreaks in the county.

In the middle: San Mateo, Napa, Alameda, Sonoma

San Mateo County’s positive test rate is 3.3% for the 14-day period ending Tuesday. The county has progressed far into reopening, with less risky businesses resuming in May, indoor dining OKd in mid-June, and most other businesses allowed to open by June 19. It was the only Bay Area county still allowing indoor dining as of Monday, when Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide order revoked that privilege; others either suspended operations earlier or hadn’t allowed them to reopen yet.

Napa County, with a 3.7% positive test rate over the 14-day period, was the earliest Bay Area county to reopen outdoor and indoor dining, on May 20. For most of June, Napa’s weekly positive test rate was steady at 1.7%, and in late May it was as low as 0.4%. But the state reports social gatherings, an increase in transmission, especially among the Latino community, and the impact on agricultural workers contributed to a recent rise in the rate, which reached 4.7% on July 5.

Alameda County, at 4% for the 14-day period, has been among the slowest in the Bay Area to reopen. But increased social interactions and a spike in cases among essential workers and in nursing facilities prompted the state to place it on the watch list on Wednesday. The county had allowed outdoor dining to resume on June 19, but had to reverse course last weekend because of a state restriction. As of Wednesday, restaurants can reopen for patio dining again. Alameda posted its lowest weekly rate in mid-June at 3.6%. Throughout May it hovered around 5%.

Sonoma County follows with a 4.2% positive test rate over the 14-day period, and saw its highest daily case count since the start of the pandemic on July 12, when 116 infections were reported. Health officials have blamed the rise on more social gatherings, and workplace outbreaks including at skilled nursing facilities. Outbreaks have also occurred among workers at wineries. Past positive test rates are not recorded on the county website, so we were unable to chart the historical trend.

Here is the complete list of positive test rates for all 58 California counties over the 14-day period ending at 4 p.m. Tuesday:

Stanislaus: 15.2
Merced: 14.9
Marin (includes San Quentin cases): 12.9
San Joaquin: 12.6
Imperial: 12.3
Tulare 12.1
Orange: 12
Glenn: 11.8
Fresno: 11.6
Colusa: 11.5
San Bernardino: 11.2
Riverside: 10.8
San Diego: 10.2
Madera: 9.6
Kings: 8.9
Monterey: 8.7
Santa Barbara : 8.4
Sutter: 8.4

Yuba: 8.4
San Benito: 6.8
Kern: 6.7
Los Angeles: 6.5
Sacramento: 6.4
Solano: 6.3 Yolo: 6.3
Contra Costa: 5.1
Placer: 4.9
San Luis Obispo: 4.8
Ventura: 4.3
Butte: 4.2
Sonoma: 4.2
Alameda: 4
Napa: 3.7
Calaveras: 3.6
San Mateo: 3.3
Santa Cruz: 3.2
El Dorado: 3.1
Del Norte: 2.9

Lake: 2.7
Tehama: 2.6
Amador: 2.5
Santa Clara: 2.5
Mono: 2.3
Shasta: 2.2
San Francisco: 2.1
Plumas: 2
Nevada: 1.9
Humboldt: 1.7
Lassen : 1.6
Siskiyou: 1.4
Inyo: 1.1
Mariposa: 0.9
Tuolomne: 0.8
Mendocino: 0.6
Alpine: 0
Modoc: 0
Sierra: 0
Trinity: 0

Kellie Hwang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.

California, Coronavirus, Covid 19, San Francisco Bay Area, Test positivity rates

COVID-19 “test positivity rates” in California, U.S.

July 8, 2020 Roger Straw

Coronavirus: California continues troubling trend upward in COVID-19 metrics

With the weekend delays accounted for, the 7-day average of new cases climbed to its highest point of the pandemic

Vallejo Times-Herald, by Evan Webeck, July 7, 2020

The seven-day average of new coronavirus cases in California soared as Los Angeles County reported three days’ worth of test results Monday.

The raw number of cases reported around the state Monday obliterated the previous record but comes with an enormous caveat: a number of counties, including L.A., which itself accounts for nearly half the state’s confirmed cases, had backlogs of test results of up to three days because of the long holiday weekend. In total, the statewide case count grew by 16,637, including 8,903 in Los Angeles, to 271,889, according to data compiled by this news organization. Another 109 Californians succumbed to the virus — 81 in Los Angeles — raising the death toll to 6,446.

With the weekend delays accounted for, the average number of new cases reported around the state each day for the past week climbed to its highest point of the pandemic. For the first time, California is adding more 7,000 new cases per day — 7,041, 28.6% more than a week ago — while the average daily death count reached its highest level in more than a month: 67 lives taken by the virus each day over the past week.

Hospitalizations and test-positivity rate, two metrics frequently cited by Gov. Gavin Newsom and local health officials, also continued to slope upward. There were 5,790 patients hospitalized statewide Sunday, including 504 in the Bay Area. In the past two weeks, the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital beds has doubled in the Bay Area while rising 56% statewide.

Even as some counties near capacity, there remain plenty of open hospital and ICU beds around the state. Riverside County’s ICUs were 94% full Sunday — down from 99% last week, though more were COVID-19 patients (9.5% of ICU beds on June 27; 13.9% on July 5) — while hospitals in the Bay Area are accepting transfers from other counties. Statewide, COVID-19 patients continue to take up about 8% of the state’s hospital beds.

The percentage of tests to come back positive over the past seven days also crossed the 7% threshold for the first time since the end of April. In two weeks, it has risen from 4.9% to 7.5% even as the state conducts more tests. Labs around the state reported 25% more positive tests in the past week than the one before (6,826 per day vs. 5,499), despite conducting 12.5% more tests (104,523 per day vs. 92,848).

Newsom has previously said “each decimal point is profoundly impactful” when it comes to positivity rate. But California’s still lags many other states, despite recording among the most cases. Its 7.5% rate ranks 18th among all 50 states, well behind Arizona (25.3%) and Florida (18.7%). The country’s rate has seen a similar spike: below the 5% threshold three weeks ago, to 7.8% now.

The World Health Organization has said positivity rates should remain at 5% or below for 14 days before beginning to reopen. Currently, only 23 states meet that metric, according to Johns Hopkins University and the COVID Tracking Project.

Coronavirus, Covid 19, San Francisco Bay Area

Getting grandma out of the care facility… build her a backyard cottage?

July 4, 2020 Roger Straw

Bay Area backyard cottages boom as elderly parents and college students flee coronavirus

San Francisco Chronicle, by J.K. Dineen, July 4, 2020

Omar Abi-Chachine (right), son of the homeowner, stands next to the foundation for the Abodu accessory dwelling unit before it was installed in Millbrae. Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

Bay Area companies that specialize in backyard cottages are seeing a surge in interest from homeowners who suddenly need to create additional living space for elderly parents or adult children displaced because of the coronavirus.

Some families are scrambling to move their parents out of assisted-living facilities, where the risks of contracting the coronavirus are high. Other erstwhile empty-nesters find themselves crowded as their young adult kids return from shuttered college campuses or look to escape small apartments in expensive cities like San Francisco or New York.

After California lawmakers embraced a series of statewide bills in 2017 to streamline building backyard cottages — also called accessory dwelling units or ADUs — the number of new units approved exploded to more than 7,000 in 2018, 50% higher than 2017. For many suburban residents, the backyard homes were seen as a more palatable answer to the housing crisis than large apartment buildings. But in a state that should build millions of homes to keep up with demand, critics said the cottages are a distraction from the need to build multiunit buildings at scale.

Abodu, a San Jose firm that makes ADUs, estimates that 10,000 will be permitted in California in 2020, based on a survey of city permits.

Adobu has seen orders for modular cottages more than double since the pandemic began, according to CEO John Geary. The units start at about $199,000, and with finishes, most come in at about $220,000.

Omar Abi-Chachine (center), son of the homeowner, stands next to the foundation for the Abodu accessory dwelling unit before it was installed in Millbrae. Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

Another manufacturer, Sonderpods of Novato, had 3,000 visits to its website in the 90 days before the shelter-in-place order in March, but has seen that number jump to 25,000 over the last 90 days. Within a few weeks of the health order, the company had signed seven contracts to deliver backyard cottages and was negotiating an additional 92 deals. Sonderpods average about $139,000.

“We are sprinting to keep up with things,” said Edward Stevenson, CEO of Sonderpods.

Hank Hernandez, who owns Alameda Tiny Homes, said he has been flooded with inquiries.

“I get calls all day, every day,” he said. “The basic request is, ‘I want to put my parents in my backyard as quickly as possible.’”

Before coronavirus, Redwood City resident Jen Parsons was exploring options for her widowed mom, who was looking to downsize from her longtime home. She was exploring nearby retirement communities and possibly buying a bigger house that could accommodate three generations when the pandemic hit. Suddenly there was a pressing need. With two young kids, Parsons didn’t feel safe moving to an unfamiliar neighborhood in the middle of a pandemic and was not keen on moving her mom to a senior housing complex.

“You hear all these stories about retirement communities being on lockdown — you can’t even take your elderly parent to lunch or dinner, only to doctors appointments,” she said.

Instead, they decided to purchase an Abodu AD unit, which will arrive in August or September.

“Having an ADU unit back there for my mom will feel like a safe and peaceful environment at a time when there is a lot of stress because of COVID-19,” she said. “We can meet her in the patio and have snacks.”

Eric McInerney (left), Abodu co-founder, talks with Omar Abi-Chachine, the son of the homeowner, inside the accessory dwelling unit after it was installed in Millbrae. Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

Faysal Abi, a retired police officer and yoga teacher in Redwood City, also ordered an Abodu. He said that the unit will provide housing for a friend who needs a place to live.

“A friend fell on hard times, and the Bay Area isn’t exactly cheap,” he said. “I feel like community is something we are lacking, especially since coronavirus. There is more isolation. One way to heal the world right now is through more community and knowing your neighbors and staying connected. I feel this will help accomplish that.”

Abi also persuaded his mother, Rabina Abi-Chahine, a 62-year-old social worker, to buy her own backyard cottage for her home in Millbrae. Abi-Chahine said she was motivated both by a desire to create some income as she approaches retirement and having a spot for her own father some day.

Geary said another client, a Palo Alto woman, had two children away at college suddenly return, joining two other teenagers at home, which immediately made the house feel crowded.

Stevenson, the CEO of Sonderpods, said that 70% of customers are older than 55 and 70% are women building units on their kids’ properties.

“A lot of it is Baby Boomers selling the family home and moving in into their kids’ backyards. People are re-evaluating what is important and trying to bring the family closer together,” he said. “We are not seeing a lot of people who are straight-up looking to make income.”

Thanks to a series of state and local bills, ADUs can be built relatively quickly with limited bureaucratic hassle in some cities. San Jose, which has been aggressive in encouraging the tiny homes, has seen permitted ADUs jump to 691 last year from 24 in 2014. So far this year, 321 applications have been filed.

The Abodu was the first ADU manufacturer preapproved by the city of San Jose — which cut multiple inspections and red tape. From the day the permit is pulled, Abodu can have the unit installed within 12 weeks.

Hernandez of Alameda Tiny Homes said that while his business has been steady for the past few years, clients’ motivation has changed. It used to be that most homeowners were looking for extra income. Now it’s to meet family needs.