Commuters in San Francisco last month. Among California’s 58 counties, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Alameda currently have the highest rates of Covid transmission.Credit…Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Since the early days of the pandemic, the Bay Area has been seen as a model for how to minimize the spread of the coronavirus.
The region instated the nation’s first stay-at-home orders in March 2020, and has since consistently seen lower levels of transmission than its southern counterparts. Today, the Bay Area has one of the country’s lowest Covid-19 death rates.
But over the past few weeks, the region has been getting a different, and less welcome, kind of pandemic attention.
The Bay Area has emerged as the state’s latest Covid hot spot, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among California’s 58 counties, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Alameda currently have the highest rates of Covid transmission, according to The New York Times tracker.
On Friday, health officers from 11 counties in and around the Bay Area warned of a new swell of cases fueled by highly contagious Omicron subvariants.
Though a mask requirement for BART was reinstated late last month, the health officers aren’t reinstalling additional mandates, relying instead on recommendations that people use rapid tests, get boosters when eligible and start keeping masks handy again.
“If you’ve chosen not to wear a mask in indoor public places recently, now is a good time to start again,” Dr. George Han, deputy health officer for Santa Clara County’s public health department, said in a statement on Friday.
As the first Omicron wave receded in early spring, Covid restrictions were lifted across California and much of the nation. That means many Americans are increasingly in situations where they could contract the virus, whether eating indoors or going unmasked on airplanes.
New coronavirus cases have more than tripled since April 1 across the United States — and in California specifically. The Bay Area’s rates have climbed faster, but remain roughly in line with what’s being seen elsewhere, said Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of medicine at University of California, San Francisco.
“It’s not a night and day difference. What’s surprising though is that the Bay Area has been such an overperformer throughout the pandemic,” Wachter told me. “We’ve sort of gotten used to being the poster children for doing well.”
Wachter knows more people who’ve contracted Covid in the past few weeks than ever before, he said, including his wife. He offered a few theories on the Bay Area’s newfound position.
The San Francisco area has a high fraction of residents who have been able to work from home for the past two years, so they may have been able to avoid the virus until recently dropping their guard amid loosened pandemic rules. “For the first time in two years, you see a lot of people without masks,” Wachter said.
And though the region has high vaccination rates, the shots’ ability to prevent people from getting infected wanes over time, so they may not confer the same protection they once did. Plus, the Bay may be particularly vulnerable simply because of how many residents have never contracted the virus before, he added.
“In the face of a very, very infectious variant, the fact that you did well in the past is a little bit of a risk factor for more people getting infected now,” Wachter said.
Hospitalizations have increased slightly in the Bay Area, but far less than during previous surges, most likely because vaccines provide such strong protection against severe disease. In Los Angeles County, where cases have increased 56 percent over the past two weeks, the number of patients hospitalized with Covid remains flat.
Health officials warn that reported case numbers are probably a severe undercount, as at-home rapid tests are not included in the data. But the figures still provide a snapshot of the latest trends.
At U.C. San Francisco, surgery patients without Covid symptoms are swabbed for the virus as a precaution. About 5 percent of those patients are testing positive, which suggests that roughly one in 20 people in the Bay Area who feel fine are infectious with Covid, Wachter said.
“The bottom line is that there’s a lot of Covid around, and if you have let your guard down, there’s a decent chance you’re going to get it,” he said.
For more:
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Check the latest Covid case rates in your county.
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How often can you be infected with the coronavirus?
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New York City officials on Monday strongly recommended that all people wear medical-grade masks in public spaces.
If you read one story, make it this
Flood-risk maps have been available for homeowners for years. Now there’s one for wildfires.
The rest of the news
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Church shooting: The Orange County sheriff said that the gunman who opened fire on a Taiwanese congregation in Laguna Woods was motivated by political hatred.
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Women on boards: A California law requiring women on corporate boards has been ruled unconstitutional by a Los Angeles judge, The Associated Press reports.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
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Cross-border tunnel: The authorities discovered a giant drug-smuggling tunnel linking Tijuana and San Diego, The Associated Press reports.
CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
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The value of sheep: Paicines Ranch in San Benito County is an experiment in creating a diverse ecosystem dedicated to regenerative agriculture.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
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San Francisco homelessness: San Francisco has recorded a slight decline in the number of its homeless residents, The Associated Press reports.
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Chico overdoses: Four men who were found unconscious at a Chico park, two of whom died, were probably experiencing drug overdoses, The Associated Press reports.
What you get
What can $2.7 million buy in California? A midcentury retreat in Palm Springs, an Edwardian house in Palo Alto or a renovated 1948 home in Sonoma.
What we’re eating
No-bake blueberry cheesecake bars.
Where we’re traveling
Today’s tip comes from Amy Patrick, who lives in Napa:
Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to [email protected]. We’ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.
Tell us
What do you want to know about California’s June primary election? Email us your questions at [email protected].
And before you go, some good news
On May 7, Kai Neukermans went to a Pearl Jam show at the Forum in Inglewood. Neukermans, an 18-year-old from Mill Valley, drums in his own band, which has performed at a number of festivals.
Less than a week after the concert, Neukermans found himself playing onstage with Pearl Jam at the Oakland Arena.
“It was surreal,” Neukermans told SFGate. “The arena lit up and everyone was screaming.”
Read how it happened on SFGate.
Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Soumya
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Animals that sing (5 letters).
Mariel Wamsley and Jaevon Williams contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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