Transcripts For SFGTV Mayors Press Availability 20240713

Commissioner paulson. Without objection, that is the order. Mr. President , i would like to note for the record that the p. U. C. Commissioners caen and vietor are not in chamber okay. Colleagues that brings us to the end of our joint special meeting agenda. Madame clerk, is there any further business before us today . That concludes our business for today, mr. President thank you. We are adjourned. [please stand by] good afternoon, everyone. Im San Francisco mayor london breed and i am joined here by a number of departments who will be talking later on during the press conference. We are joined by department of Emergency Management director Mary Ellen Carroll as well as department of Public Health director, dr. Grant colfax. The director of Human Services, trent rohr, the director of Homeless Services for the city, Abigail Stewart kahn and our police chief bill scott. We have a pretty lengthy press Conference Today because we have we have a lot of information to update the public with. So i want to first start with city test s. F. And we know that every single day there are people who are working, City Employees who are on the front lines. Our police officers, our firefighters, our muni drivers, our Health Care Workers. They are essential city workers who are showing up and who are interact aing with the public more so than most others and they have, we know, concerns about their own health. So they cant always n their capacity, practice social distancing. That ier are taking care of us so its important that we take care of them. And one of most basic things that we can do is to ensure that they have access to testing. Now last week, we announced a partnership that would allow our First Responders to get priority testing through a number of health care providers. And here in San Francisco, we know that it has been very frustrating because we have lacked the testing that we need in order to really put people at ease and ensure them that they are safe. This means that so many of our workers are have a lot of uncertainty. And uncertain that theyre exposed and that they have the virus and thats why its important that we do everything we can to ramp up locally, but to provide an option for them to be tested. Today we are proud to announce that we are opening city test s. F. , can which will serve as a drivethru testing site for our frontline city workers. It will be located at peers 30 and 32 and we will be able to ramp up to test hundreds of city workers each and every day and i really want to thank the color companies color and Carbon Health for partnering with us to undertake this incredibly important project. This has really been a team effort and i especially want to thank support of San Francisco, the director lane forbes as well as dr. Colfax in the department of Public Health for their work in making this happen. The initial focus will be on First Responders that i mentioned earlier and as we ramp up, we will begin to expand it for some of our shelter workers and nonprofit workers and those other essential workers that are also on the frontlines. Access to the expanded testing means that frontline staff who have become infected can be identified earlier and get the care that they need. It also means that frontline workers who are currently in quarantine, but not infected, can return to their families and keep doing the critical work that we need them to do. They are taking care of us, as i said. So, it is important that we do everything we can to take care of them. We also have been working to secure hotel rooms for our First Responders and today im proud to announce that, because a collaboration between our Emergency Operation center and hotel council, we secured our first Hotel Lease Agreement to provide rooms for our frontline workers with more rooms on the way. The First Hotel Property will provide 383 rooms for city Frontline Health care workers, people who work at General Hospital or people who work at laguna honda. We anticipate finalizing a second Hotel Location this week for an additional 500 rooms. This weekend, 30 Health Care Workers moved into the first hotels. These hotel rooms allow people to do the incredible work they are doing to save lives without having to worry about going home to infect their families or folks in their community. They provide the relief for frontline personnel who are working long hours and commuting far distances and we will continue to add more hotel rooms to our frontline workers as well as for our other priorities. Which include covid19 patients who need to be isolated but dont need to be in the hospital. And our vulnerable seniors and people with Underlying Health conditions in our shelters and on our streets. Today we announced that we had two positive covid19 cases at one of the shelters and Abigail Stewart kahn from the department of homelessness and Supportive Housing will discuss that in more detail. These hotel rooms are essential in our work to proactively move Vulnerable People out of our shelters as well as to quickly get impacted people into isolation when cases do occur. And we will continue to add more rooms as we continue to prepare our city for a potential surge at our hospitals. We also learned today that two individuals that tested positive for covid19 at m. S. C. South have been in contact with 19 residents who had so far moved into the new location at musconi west. All 19 individuals at musconi west are moved into quarantine, into hotels as a precautionary measure. And we also realize that we as things move quickly, there are although that we set up musconi west initially to assist in thinning out many of our shelters throughout San Francisco to practice social distancing and, to be clear, musconi west does meet c. D. C. Guidelines for providing shelter to those who do not carry the virus. We also realize that we need to think about making changes to avoid having an outbreak or situation in places like musconi west or any place elsewhere we know there are large populations of people, regardless of our c. D. C. Guidelines being implemented. Moving forward, as a result, we have made some changes to musconi west. The musconi west facility will now be used to house people who have been in quarantine and recovered from covid19 or people who had been quarantined and test negative for covid19. This will allow us to free up hotel rooms. We dont have when people no longer need them. Just as the hotel rooms provide an exit for people from hospitals and shelters when someone needs to be quarantined, musconi west can free up a space in the hotel when they no longer need to be isolated and were also going to be making some changes at musconi west, including decreasing the capacity so we can allow people to spread out even more, adding partitions and a lot more. We already have 24hour bathroom attendants, we have shower facilities and outlooer locations in places for people to go outside and smoke cigarettes. Because we have people who live in our shelters who smoke cigarettes. We are thinking about food and where they eat and how we dont keep those places clean. A number of adjustments will be made and trent will talk a little bit more about that. In addition to more hotel rooms to create space in our system, we need more hospital beds. In places like new york and italy, we have seen what happens when we dont have enough of the facilities and equipment we need to handle the surge as we talked about. We have seen overcrowded hospitals and doctors making choices about who to treat. We never want to get there in San Francisco and we have to do everything we can to protect Public Health, but to make sure that when people need a doctor, when they need a hospital bed, that we dont turn them away. Today governor da Gavin Newsome will be leading an effort to open up 290 beds at the cpmc pacific campus on california street. We have been in close contact with the governors office, with sutter and cpmc over this issue over the past couple of weeks and were deeply appreciative of this effort to expand our Hospital Capacity and we look forward to working with the governor and cpmc and sutter to make sure that we have the capacity, that we are fully staffed with the equipment and the resources that we need to make sure that this hospital is able to support the people that we know need it the most. All along that we have said that no local jurisdiction can do this alone. We need support from the state and the federal government and im truly great to feel the governor for his leadership in getting this site up and running. And well continue to need the states support as we work together. As i said, to plan for staffing of the facility. Again i want to thank sutter and cpmc for their work in helping us expand our capacity. The site will need minor improvements before its operational. But we anticipate opening it within the next 10 days. Along with the 48 covid19 beds that opened at st. Francis hospital today, we are continuing to do the work to prepare our medical system for the surge we all know is coming. Our entire medical system is united and focused on doing what it takes to get through what is an incredibly challenging time. And we are truly showing that when we come together, we can really deliver for the people of the city. I also want to provide an update with muni and we have the director, jeff tumblin of sfmta to provide more details. We know that there are going to be some changes with muni and the bus service in the coming days and that is why it is critical we get this city test s. F. Site up and running. Once the site is fully implemented, well be able to provide tests for muni drivers so if they have questions about any illness they feel is covid19, they can get tested. If theyre not, they can help keep our critical Public Transportation system running. But right now one of the main reasons why we have had to reduce our service, has a lot to do with a lot of uncertainty around testing and around keeping our muni drivers safe and this is why its so critical and so important. These drivers work really hard for us. They are people out there every single day. They are essential workers to our workforce. And people who do not need to use muni, please dont. I know that director tumblin mentioned this before. This is the last thing we want to say. But we want to make sure that people who need muni the most, that they get it. Buses have been crowded when they shouldnt be and what that means they have to make some major changes to ensure public safety. If you see that a bus is crowded and you cant necessarily practice certainly distancing, do not get on the bus. If it gets too crowded, exit the bus. The fact is, we dont want to reduce service any further than we need to. We dont want a muni driver to stop moving its bus because it is too crowded to move because the people on the bus are not practicing social distancing. So we need to take steps to keep our drivers safe and keep the bhaoem rely on muni safe as well. I want to say a special thank you to all the drivers out there. More than ever, you are so essential to us and well do everything we can to keep you safe. And so busy times in our city. A lot of real challenges. And, again, this weekend i want to thank people here in San Francisco for continuing to practice social distancing, for just really taking the order seriously. Although we know we continue to face a number of challenges in particular areas throughout the city. We have been very active out there with our police department, with our Homeless Outreach team and others to try to continue to educate people but also hold them accountable because were all connected. We all need to make better decisions about how we continue to implement social distancing as time goes on. Its going to be harder and harder for us to stay at home and continue this practice, but were counting on all of you to participate and maintain social distancing and everyone here in the city to look out for one another as we continue to get through this very challenging time. So at this time, id like to ask the director of the department of Public Health, dr. Grant colfax, to come up and provide us with a update from Public Health. Dr. Colfax. Thank you, mayor. I am grant colfax, director of health. Today, i want to thank everyone in San Francisco and in the bay area region for their cooperation and everything they are doing to help fight the spread of the coronavirus. You are leading the way. When you stay home, when you keep six feet apart from people, when you wash your hands and when you cover your nose and your mouth with cloth, you are literally saving lives. I would like to update san franciscans today on a few developments in our ongoing work to respond to the coronavirus and protect our community. Today, there are 583 San Francisco residents with confirmed cases of coronavirus. 38 of them are 83 of them are in the hospitals across the city and nearly half of those 83 are in the intensive care units. We know that three of them are among people experiencing homelessness, including two at the m. S. C. South shelter and one who spent time at the Division Circle Navigation Center. This underscores the need for us to continue to focus on the most vulnerable populations. Including those in longterm care facilities, shelters, people over 60 and those with Underlying Health conditions. Sadly, nine san franciscans have died from the disease. Covid19. I would like to send condolences on behalf of the entire Health Department to their families, loved ones and friends. And as we continue to fight the coronavirus pandemic, i would like to remind you that our top priority is to continue to be slowing and reducing the spread of the virus in our community, protecting vulnerable populations, Health Care Workers and First Responders, preparing our Health Care System for an expected surge of hospital patients and expanding testing capacity. In all this work, we will continually seek to do better as we incorporate the latest science, data and facts into our action as and recommendations. We have all known from the start that this is a rapidly evolving situation and that will continue to be true. We will adapt our response accordingly. We are working quickly to integrate new information all the time and adjust our recommendations so that were providing the very best and most uptodate advice that we can give. As san franciscans know, we are working to prepare our hospitals and Health Care System for an expected surge of covid19 patients. We have seen this happen across the world and this country and we need to be as ready as we possibly can. We are making progress in surge preparation and i would like to share a few highlights today. As san franciscans know, our Surge Capacity to increase. And today we have reached a significant milestone. We have successfully expanded our bed Inventory System and exceeded the states ask that all jurisdictions expand their capacity by at least 40 . By working together since january, San Francisco hospitals have managed to increase the citys intensive care unit beds from 277 to 530. A 91 increase. A 91 increase. And our regular acute care beds, socalled medical surgery beds, have increased from 1055 to just over 1600. A 52 increase. We accomplished this by opening previously closed units and by repurposing areas normally used for other functions, such as outpatient surgery. These extra beds will make a big difference. However, there are still plausible scenarios that a large surge could overwhelm even those additional resources. And yet we have made progress by decompressing hospitals so they can be as empty as possible and ready for the surge and we have canceled, by health order, elective surgeries and routine procedures. I am happy to report that today, st. Francis memorial hospital, plans to open its newlydedicated unit for coronavirus patients. This unit will have a capacity eventually of 48 additional beds, including eight intensive care unit beds. Additionally, with partners across the city, we have moved 150 patients who have confirmed coronavirus or who are awaiting test results but who do not need hospital care into hotels where they can safely isolate. We have also sped up testing so that patients have a shorter wait time for their results. There are several other surge plans in progress, including expanding clinics throughout the city that we will be able to provide more information about soon. In addition, as the mayor mentioned and the governor announced today, the state has reached an agreement with cpmc to make its vacant pacific campus hospital available for our coronavirus surge work. These additional beds are not included in the totals i just covered. Every day that we can prepare is a good day. It is so important that people continue to stay at home and to practice physical distancing, hand washing and face covering. That is how we will slow down the virus as much as possible and ensure as much as possible that we have the beds we need in our Hospital System to care for those most in need. Now i would like to talk briefly about data. As i have said many times, San Franciscos response to the coronavirus emergency is grounded and will continue to be grounded in data, science and facts. We are able to use what we know from other parts of world and the country to guide our decisions and inform our interventions. Data is, and will always be, an important tool to help san franciscans see the whole picture of the coronavirus pandemic in our community. This knowledge can help us all do our part and see over time how the situation is changing. So today i am pleased to announce that we will be sharing more data about San Franciscos coronavirus pandemic. Our data analysts have been working hard to collect information from across the city, to create accurate, reliable and timely reports to help guide our decisions and inform you, the public. D. P. H. Has been working and will continue to work with the Controllers Office and the department of Emergency Management on a new data tracker that will be posted on our website very soon. The tracker will feature more information about cases, the demographics of patients, hospitalizations and testing. We will add more Data Elements as we gather more information and continue to improve. Now i would like the provide an update on the outbreak at laguna honda hospital and the steps we are taking to protect health of residents and staff. This weekend, we identified four new positive cases at laguna honda hospital, bringing the total number of cases up to 16. 12 of the informed of the confirmed cases are among staff and four are among residents. Of staff, nine have been in patient care positions and three have not. The four new cases are from an impacted unit. The south five neighborhood. Two are residents of the south five neighborhood and two are parent caregivers on the south side neighborhood. With regard to testing at laguna honda, to date, 290 staff have been tested, either directly by the departments of Public Health or their own provider. 98 patients at laguna honda hospital have been tested. This weekend, we completed retesting of all patients on south five on the south five neighborhood. Results are pending. The retesting of south five staff is happening today. We will also retest the staff and test all patients on south four. To date, south four has no residents who have tested positive for coronavirus, though of course that situation could change. As part of our ongoing outbreak response, we continue to test staff and patients throughout the hospital that have been identified as being exposed through contact investigation or who show symptoms of the virus. Unfortunately we do expect more positive cases, but it is crucial that we know the facts so that we can take evidenceinformed action to preserve health and mitigate the spread of the virus in that institution. We are continuinging to work very closely with the centers for Disease Control and prevention who have been at laguna honda for the past week. They are joining our team of some of the most foremost experts of San Francisco department of health to guide an informed response. I am thankful for the support and expertise of our federal, state and local partners and our response. And the c. D. C. Has recommended and we have rapidly adopted multiple Infection Prevention and control strategies to combat the coronavirus at the facility. These include limiting movement throughout the hospital to only essential movement. Restricting accesses to two entrances only where all staff is screened upon entering the hospital. There is mandatory masking for all staff and there is enhanced personal protective equipment or p. P. E. That is being provided for staff who are in quarantined or isolated areas or treating isolated patients. These are in addition to the steps that the department of Public Health with the support of mayor breed, has already taken to limit the spread, including placing the entire laguna Honda Community a prevent civ quarantine. This prevents Community Spread by having residents remain on campus and limits opportunities for the virus to be brought on campus. We have stopped the rotation of staff to various units and limited impacted areas to only the most essential personnel. We have made the very hard but necessary decision in early march to restrict visitors at the site. At our request, the c. D. C. And the state Health Department have provided additional clinical and epidemologic leadership and well dont test staff and residents based on these risk assessments Going Forward. The c. D. C. Is also providing expert knowledge to our clinical teams on improving the collection of data. This will not only inform prevention and Response Strategies for laguna honda hospital, but also for Skilled Nursing facilities throughout the bay area and perhaps even the nation. Laguna honda is, and continues to be a top priority for the Health Department and the city. We and i will continue to do everything we can to resfonlds the changing situation and i will keep the staff, residents, families and public updated. Now id like to move to First Responder testing and a brief mention of the hotels that director rohr will talk about. As we all know, Health Workers and First Responders are crucial to San Franciscos battle against coronavirus. I am grateful to mayor breed, the port, our d. P. H. Staff and our private sector partners for creating if new testing site for Health Care Workers and First Responders. These talented and dedicated professionals are courageously working on the frontlines every day. By providing them dedicated testing, we can assuage anxiety, answer uncertainty and speed the recovery so these First Responders can be with their families and continue to support the health of our city. Now director trent rohr of the Human Service agency will provide an update on another key aspect of supporting our Health Workers and First Responders. Temporary housing in hotels to keep them and their families safe. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Im the director of the Human Services agency. Thank you, dr. Colfax, for teeing up my discussion about First Responder hotels. So, we knew from the be beginning of this that we were going to need to accommodate our Frontline Health responders, our Health Care Workers, our nurses, our doctors. Its critically important that they be able to remain here and not potentially infect their families or others going back home. Many of our Health Responders have long commutes after working long shifts. In addition, we dont want Health Responders going home and potentially being infected in their communities. So, to this end, we have secured two hotels, totaling 83 rooms for this purpose. The first 383room hotel is currently under contract and will receive Health Care Responders immediately. The second has already opened up 150 of their rooms of which 30 were occupied by the first group of Health Responders who took advantage of these hotels. Well continue to identify hotels for this population should the need grow. Again, right now it is 2883 rooms and we continue to assess both the numbers of Health Care Workers, nurses, doctors and others, plus other critical First Responders, me cal social workers, Law Enforcement to see what the numbers need to be. There are two other areas id like to address today. One is our shelters, particularly the shelter activation at musconi west and the sect as an update on the hotel rooms we have secured for individuals who needable to be quarantined, isolated or protected from other congregate areas. Last year we opened up the shelter west to thin out our existing shelter system. If you remember four weeks ago when we activated our operations center, we were using the best data and information at the time and continue to create and design our system using the best information available. We also said four weeks ago that this is a very fluid situation and will continue to be. The c. D. C. At the time recommended that shelters achieve thinning of three feet between beds, subsequent to that the state department of health increased that to six feet between beds and the latest from the state of california, as well as other counties, are now shifting gears away from congregate sites entirely and moving toward hotel rooms tom themed, we are now shifting gears at musconi west and rather than that being a shelter to achieve the reduced population in our homeless shelter system, that will instead serve as a shelter environment for individuals who have either tested negative for covid19 or who are considered post covid or have cleared the 14 days and are no longer covidpositive. This will be staffed by the appropriate medical and social work staff. The population will be reduced from a total of 394 down to 200. The shelter will be partitioned off into four areas of 50 patients each and each individual will have their own partition creating that necessary physical distance as well as a wall or partition pa create additional privacy. This will help us really provide a relief valve on the back end of our system, allowing individuals who were quarantined in hotel rooms to exit out after having been, again, tested and tested negative to allow for those rooms and to be activated for additional people who need to be quarantined. It will help our Hospital System for Homeless Individuals who may be in that system for a noncovidrelated illness. Those individuals will also have been cleared by the hospital and could choose to go to that shelter as well. We still have the imperative, however, of reducing the populations in our existing shelter system. The plan moving forward now is to adhao ef this reduction through placement into hotel rooms exclusively. We will continue to focus on the population in our shelters, individuals age 60 and above as well as individuals who have Underlying Health conditions that make them more vulnerable to covid. The current estimate of the number of rooms in order to achieve that reduction in shelter census is 500. Which brings me to the data on the hotel rooms that we brought forth to the present. We currently have 945 rooms in eight Hotels Across the city, to be able to receive individuals who either need to be quarantined or isolated or individuals who are going to be moved from the shelter system in order to reduce the population or moved from the street. The individuals moving from the street, again, per the c. D. C. Guidelines, per the fema reimbursement guidelines would be individuals who are over age 60 or individuals who have Underlying Health chance make them more vulnerable to the coronavirus virus. We continue to move individuals as we speak. So far we have admitted over 150 individuals into these rooms with another 40 vulnerable adults being moved from the shelter system today. We will continue to do two things. One is remove individuals from the shelter system and to the street in these rooms but we continue to work with hotel owners and negotiate further contracts to bring additional rooms online. Again, when we started this four weeks ago based on the best guidance from the c. D. C. And from our partners at the state department of health as well as the department of Public Health here in San Francisco, we our target was 3500 hotel rooms and 2500 shelter beds. Based on the best information, evidence and data we have now, were looking at more like 4500 hotel rooms and the shelters that we had planned to activate to create thinning are now no longer going to be used for that purpose. Moving forward, were working with our Public Health partners to identify potentially smaller congregate sites to serve as medicallybased shelters and this is for vims who are vulnerable or older and need extra support that cannot be provided within the confines of a hotel room. The lead on our movement out of the shelter system into hotels as well as the identification of vulnerable ij individuals on the street and moving into hotels is led by the departments of homelessness and Supportive Housing. The director of that department, Abigail Stewart khan, is here to talk about how were going to achieve that reductioner in our shelter and on the streets as well as to talk to you about our system response to the covid Navigation Center as well as at the m. S. C. Homeless shelter. Abigail stewart kahn. Thank you, director. Thank you, mayor breed, and to the guests, h. H. S. Staff, City Partners and owl of those in San Francisco who care so deeply about people experiencing homelessness during this crisis. H. H. S. And our nonprofits hear you. This reminds us day in and day out that housing is health care and relationships are the best form of treatment. Those without these suffer the most. Today, three shelter guests have tested positive for covid19. Protocols have been implemented in response to both sites. First, supplying the shelter with additional masks and that all shelter guests and staff wear masks at all times. This is advice being given to all of our shelter sites as we speak. The department of Public Health initiated Contact Tracing with these patients when they came into contact with them. This allow us to understand who at the shelter and in the rest of the community positive individuals have come into contact with. This is the same process that happens with housed and unhoused neighbors who test positive for covid. The department of Public Health is deploying a physician and Health Workers to the shelter site to conduct symptoms and temperature screening for all guests and staff. They will be relocated to staff isolation rooms if testing positive for covid19. Guests considered close contacts will also be relocated to Quarantine Hotel rooms. Guests over the age of 60 and those with preexisting conditions will be placed in hotel rooms to shelter in place. Staff at the shelter will also be provided medical support and First Responders. Were grateful to our system of care for viewing our nonprofit and city workers who work with the Homeless Population as First Responders. The city is deploying a professional cleaning crew on site to thoroughly disinfect the shelter and the domestic of Public Health will be on site to answer staff and guest questions. They will continue to implement Shelter Health and social distapsinging protocols. As more individual move off site, that social distancing will be accomplished. Director rhorer also spoke about social distancing now moving to be focused in hotels. Top priorities for the use of the hotel rooms are to provide quarantine and isolation rooms for cov irk dpositive people or people awaiting testing results living in crowded settings or rooms in highrisk populations such as people experiencing homelessness. H. S. H. Has opened a hotel to provide shelter in place for high risk people experiencing homelessness in our existing shelter system. This new capacity brought online very rapidly will allow for greater physical distancing at existing shelters and will protect the health of seniors and people with preexisting conditions in our shelter system. Now the challenge is scale. H. S. H. In partnership with h. S. A. Plans to continue to expand the use of hotel rooms for shelter in place for people experiencing homelessness. Excuse me. Homelessness, who are both sheltered and unsheltered. There are many factors that go into Opening Hotel rooms that include hotel staffing, meals, transportation, security, cleaning and i want to thank our departments at h. S. A. , the department of Public Health, the Emergency Operations center run by the department of Emergency Management and the Nonprofit Community for helping us move forward as rapidly as possible. Thank you. Im going to introduce jeff tamblin, the director of m. T. A. Hello, my name is jeffery tamblinful as a lifelong advocate of transit and as the director of the sfmta, i never thought i would say this. But please, if you have any other option for getting around, please do not ride muni. For the duration of the Public Health emergency, muni is only for delivering essential workers to work and allowing san franciscans to access essential services. If you need to get around for some other purpose, please find another way. If you have the ability to drive or walk or ride a bicycle, please choose those modes. In order to ensure that there is adequate Space Available on our muni buses for the people who need it the most. Many of our Bus Operators are in specific, vulnerable population categories. As a result, they are needing to shelter in place in accordance with the Public Health order. As a result, over the coming weeks, we are expecting about 30 to 40 of our Bus Operators to not be able to show up for work. As of last week, although our ridership is down by over 80 , were still carrying about 100,000 passengers a day. And as a result of that, were experiencing significant crowding on some of our key lines. Lines like the 14, the 38, the 8 and the 9. We have right now, during the Public Health crisis, two essential priorities at muni. One is protecting the health and safety of our operators and two is protecting the health and safety of our passengers who are essential workers keeping the city running. In order to meet those priorities and address the fact that service is in decline, it would be terrible for us to simply cut 30 of our Service Across the board that would result in extreme crowding on the most important lines. As a result of that, we have made the very painful choice to, instead of doing across the Board Service cuts, to streamline our service into an essential network. What this means is taking the 15 highest ridership lines and beefing up service on those lines in other words for our passengers to maintain essential distance. And as a result of that, cutting a ul of all of our low ridership lines. We did not do this work lightly. We looked carefully at all of the data of where our ridership is, segment by segment, and where were experiencing crowding. We also looked at locations of essential services all over San Francisco. Wh that is hospitals or important neighborhood commercial districts or supermarkets. We then applied the muni equity strategy, making sure that we were adding extra service to neighborhoods where there are people who have the fewest choices. The result is a map of 15 lines plus two rapid lines that serve every neighborhood and put all san franciscans within a mile of a bus stop and most san franciscans within half a mile of a bus stop. The cuts are painful in every single neighborhood. And if the response that weve goten from the public is any indication of success, weve made everyone equally unhappy. It is terribly painful for me to do this. And we are working quickly on ways in which we can provide additional taxi service to parts of the city where weve had to make the deepest cuts. These changes are going to be rolling out starting tomorrow, tuesday well be losing about half a dozen lines and then go full into effect on wednesday. We are making these changes up as we go along in response to the rapidly changing conditions as a result of the health emergency. So, i urge you to to be patient. I urge you especially to be patient with our operators. Please feel free to be upset at me for being late for work or a longer walk to your bus stop, but recognize that your Bus Operators are frontline workers. They are accepting some level of risk in order to keep this system running and in order to deliver essential workers to work. Please thank them. They are heroes here in San Francisco and i could not be more proud to work for them and be advocating on their behalf. As always, please keep up with the details on our website. They will be rapidly changing. Our website is sfmta. Com covid for all of the latest updates as we move along. Now id like to turn the stage over to the San Francisco police department, chief bill scott. Thank you. Good afternoon. Id like to start this afternoons message with an a update on what happened over the weekend by way of social distancing in our Public Health orders. Overall, we saw a lot of good social distancing over this weekend. The rain probably helped as many people were not outside who probably would have otherwise been outside. However, those that were, we saw very good cooperation with our Public Health orders and our social distancing. Our crowds were pretty light across the city. Places that normally are populated with people, they were not out this weekend. For the most part. There did not seem to be a lot of people downtown, areas of Mission District that weve had some challenges in. Areas in other parts of the city. It was just probably because of the rain but nonetheless, the news was good overall. We still have some challenges in certain parts of the city and in the tenderloin and other districts where we have unsheltered and unhoused people. Were still working with that population, particularly with the education piece and working with the departments of homelessness and Supportive Housing and the Human Services agency to try to rectify some of the challenges that we see there. That work is ongoing. Over the weekend, we have basically stepped up our patrols as we have talked about since this Public Health order started. So, hopefully you were seing as i have, many officers on the streets and on foot, particularly in the areas where were trying to spread the message and educate the people to social distance and stay six feet apart. Im going to give you the statistics and were in the process of updating what occurred over the weekend o. So, that easy statistics are actually good as of this past friday. We stills have two citations confirmed and i want to correct information that i put out last week or last friday that one of those citations was for business. That business was actually worn and admonished and closed so it was not cited. But to date, we have two citation of two individuals. There have been 26 total warnings or admonishments, 22 of those were with persons who were not found to be social distancing and four were with nonessential businesses. And as we have said over and over again, this is a matter of life and death. So, were asking that the public please comply with these Public Health orders. Stay at home, and if you have the go out for an essential item or essential shopping, please be smart about it. In terms of our crime statistics, we are still seeing decreases in crime when compared to the prior week. Last week we saw 24 decrease in violent crime. We saw a 32 decrease in property crime and overall part one decrease of 31 . And that was compared comparing the weeks of march 23rd through the 30th. Weve seen some burglaries and vandalisms of businesses so, again, our offices are out. Theyre going to be paying close attention to businesses that have closed to make sure that we can do what we can to not allow that to be a trend that our Business Owners have to deal with. Were focusing on portions of the citis to safeguard bored up businesses and so far the owners sheltering in place, we dont want them to worry about their businesses. So we will be out in full force for that. We are encouraging the public to continue to report crimes when thae see them. If its a violent crime, please call 911 and we will respond as we always do. If its a property crime or a crime of a nonviolent nature, particularly those crimes that have already occurred, please call our nonemergency number, 4155530123. You can also call 311 or utilize our website to file a Police Report or request an existing Police Report if you need a copy of it. We also want to alert the public to be aware of scams. Were seeing a lot on social media about people knocking on door in residential communities, pretending to be city workers or Public Health workers or the centers for Disease Control workers. Weve also heard information that some people are issuing masks. Those are not city workers. Those are not c. D. C. Workers nor are those folks Public Health workers. So, if someone knocks at your door in a residential area, please dont open it. Dont let them in. Do not accept a mask. Call 911. We dont want anybody to be taken advantage of and we know that even in times as unfortunate as what were facing right now, there are people out there that will take advantage of or who will take advantage of other people and we dont want that to happen to anybody. So please do not let anyone in your home t city is not sending workers to issue masks, nor are we sending workers to residential areas to inspect homes. So, if you do get a knock on your door regarding that, it is not a righteous person just doing that. So call 911. I also want to update on hate crimes. Theres been a lot of talk about whether or not hate crimes have gone up in our city, particularly hate crimes against members of our asian community. We have not seen that trend and what we ask is that if you are the victim of a hate crime, please call the police. Call us. Just to illustrate the trends that we are seeing. Im going to talk about the last four years of hate crimes yeartodate. 2017, we had a total of seven. 2018, a total of four. 2019, total of six and this year, yeartodate a total of five and this is specifically hate crimes against members of our asian community. So we have not seen an increase, but that is not to say that these things are not occurring. What we ask the public is to please report hate crimes if they are occurring. These type of crimes are unacceptable at any time and particularly during this Public Health crisis and this pandemic. So, please report that immediately if that has happened to you. Lastly, i will end on note of the same messaging as the mayor and the other city leaders that have spoken to you. We really need the publics support and help on social distancing, staying at home. Please do not go out if you dont have to. We know this will save lives. We know they will be in force to do our jobs and those that stated, those who have been warmed will be cited if we have to go back and warn them again and deal with that situation again. And with that, well open it up for questions. Reporter is San Francisco considering implementing a suerer curfew. If so, could you provide details . No. A sur few has not been discussed at this time. A curfew has not been discussed at this time. We are comfortable with the Public Health orders that the mayor and the director of Public Health has issued and we believe that if we have some success with that, there is no need for curfew. That is not on the table at this time. Reporter a followup. Exactly how many citations have been issued at this point to businesses or individuals and specifically to whom were they issued and for what exactly . Two citations, both to individuals. As i said, the information this past friday, while the business was incorrect, those two citations were both to individual. Dwrof their names. But they were both individuals and they were in violation of the Public Health order, social distancing type of issues. Reporter thank you. Question for you from Michael Barbara of the San Francisco examiner. What were the circumstances of the two shelter in place citations issued by sfpd so far, and to follow on that, do you believe the District Attorney should file charges stemming from the citations your officers have issued . Let me answer the second part first. Ive had conversations with our District Attorney about the Public Health orders and i will say that he has been extremely supportive. Weve talked specifically about the need to if the need arises, he is supportive. I dont have those cases in terms of the details to discuss the merits of either of those cases. So, i dont think thats appropriate for me to go into detail that i dont have. But i will say they were both of the Public Health order violation nature. And those eventually will make its way to the proper authorities and the prosecutor and well see what happens. Reporter thank you. The next questions are for dr. Grant colfax. Thank you. Reporter dr. Colfax, the first question is from kate wolfe. Is the San Francisco medical Examiners Office testing for covid19 in people who have died . So, the medical examiner is following c. D. C. Guidelines with regards to testing for covid19 in people who have died. That would include people who die suddenly who have a known contact with somebody whos covidpositive. Reporter thank you. Followup question have there been any fatalities involving people that were not tested while they were alive . Im aware of at least one case. The deceased was tested after unfortunatelies paing away and that person had a close contact with a covidpositive case. Reporter question from the San Francisco chronicle. Why has the department of Public Health decided to retest patients and staff in south five and four at laguna honda . As we have investigated the outbreak at laguna honda hospital, let me emphasize again that we have some of the very best people in the nation, if not in the world, helping us with this investigation. Physicians from the centers for Disease Control. And since they arrived here, starting a week ago last sunday, they have done an outstanding job and a very thoughtful and careful job of looking at the outbreak in 5s and 4s and they based on the people who have already tested positive, the staff, and the patients at 5s, they have made this recommendation and with regard to 4s, they have made the recommendation to expand our testing there. I also want to emphasize that, of the patients at laguna honda, the positive patients have been concentrated in the 5 south neighborhood. Reporter and a followup to that. What condition are the 16 infected people from laguna honda in and have any been transfered to San Francisco General Hospital . So, of the 16, 14 are in Good Condition. Two are in fair condition and have been transferred to motor acute hospitals. I will say that over the past few days there was one patient who was transferred to zuckerberg hospital, thankfully stabilized, and then was returned to quarantine at laguna honda hospital. Reporter question from the San Francisco examiner. Does the department of Public Health plan to move any patients from laguna honda hospital into hotel rooms or has that been placed on hold, given the outbreak . We are continuing to explore that and our r seeking the advice of our c. D. C. Colleagues with regard to moving that forward. I want to emphasize that from the beginning that was a small group of patients, numbering no more man between 20 and 30. Reporter and a followup from josh sabatini, do you have any details on how covid19 was introduced to laguna honda . K i think when we look at how covid19 has generally been introduced into Skilled Nursing facilities and other similar facilities across the country, despite multiple efforts to prevent and just slow the spread, unfortunately the one of the key factors is that people who work at the facility, despite their own efforts and others unintentionally appear to be the source in many of these cases, if not all of these cases. Again, right now we are working to ensure that staff are following all proper Disease Control procedures, including greatly reducing risk of transmission through masking, personal protective equipment wherever required and, again t c. D. C. Is working very hard to ensure not only are these recommendations being applied, but theyre also being adhered to. And i just really want to express my deep gratitude to the staff at laguna honda from the chief from the leadership, managers but especially the people on the frontlines who are taking care of patients every day. They are doing inced work. And i think that all of us owe them a huge debt of gratitude. This work is always challenging. Even without coronavirus. They are some of my personal heroes and more so than ever during this pandemic. Reporter thank you, dr. Colfax. The next questions are for Abigail Stewartkahn. A reporter first question is from jamie harp, associated press. To date, how many people experiencing homelessness have tested positive for covid19 . Thank you for that question. Im only aware of individuals who have tested positive at sites in the homelessness response system. Its a large system of care where people experiencing homelessness touch many different aspects. In the homeless responses to date, there are only three who have tested positive for covid. Those are the individuals that i discussed earlier. Reporter a followup to that where are they now . Those three individuals are in Good Condition and are either receiving medical care or at an isolation quarantine site operated by Human Services agency and staffed by the department of Public Health. Reporter thank you. Question from john king of the San Francisco chronicle. What is the status of the Vehicle Triage Center on geneva . Right. For those who are unfamiliar, we have a Pilot Project that allows people who live in their vehicles to come inside and receive access to our system as they work to end their homelessness. As of late last week, there were 25 vehicles on site, which is essentially full for us, and we have pivoted, as we pivoted our entire homelessness response system to be addressing that in the system of covid. People are receiving the education they need to follow all of the social distancing guidance. Reporter and a followup to that. How many r. V. S are in place and is the ramping up on schedule for the r. V. Sites . For future sites . John, i will assume that you mean your future question. So its on its on schedule for the pilot. Its working really, really well and we learn add tremendous amount and i was very pleased to speak at a hearing about it coordinated by supervisor safais office, feels like a long time ago now, honestly, and i think we need to look at everything Going Forward in the context of what the coronavirus will do to the citys response system to the citys budget as the mayor has discussed and so we have looked at every aspect of our system and what is planned for expansion and were continuing to evaluate that on a casebycase basis. Reporter final question from brian howie of San Francisco public press. Does the city plan to place into hotel rooms unhoused people who do not fwlong vulnerable populations or have not been exposed or tested positive coronavirus . That is a great question, brian. Thank you. For all of you who care so much about our unhoused and particularly our unsheltered and sheltered neighbors living in public settings, as i said, the priority for city is to move people out of hospitals and also out of congregate settings and people who are vulnerable to covid19 that are living on our streets. That is a significant portion of our unsheltered population and well be working to include them in hotel rooms first and then continue to evaluate the situation. Reporter and followup to that. Where will those currently in musconi, who are not post covid or tested negative, be moved . Those who are thank you for that question. I understand now. Those who are currently at musconi west who moved there as part of early shelter thinning as opposed to the adjustments that weve been making over the last couple of days, those individuals are being relocated to hotel rooms operated by the Human Services agency and staffed by the department of homelessness and Supportive Housing and our partners. Reporter thank you. Concludes our press conference. Roughly five years, i was working as a high school teacher, and i decided to take my students on a surfing field trip. The light bulb went off in my head, and i realized i could do much more for my students taking them surfing than i could as their classroom teacher, and that is when the idea for the city surf project was born. Working with kids in the ocean that arent familiar with this space is really special because youre dealing with a lot of fear and apprehension but at the same time, a lot of excitement. When i first did it, i was, like, really scared, but then, i did it again, and i liked it. Well get a group of kids who have just never been to the beach, are terrified of the idea, who dont like the beach. Its too cold out, and its those kid that are impossible to get back out of the water at the end of the day. Over the last few years, i think weve had at least 40 of our students participate in the city surf project. Surfing helped me with, like, how to swim. Weve start off with about two to four sessions in the pool before actually going out and surfing. Swimming at the pool just helps us with, like, being, like, comfortable in the water and being calm and not being all not being anxious. So when we started the city surf project, one of the things we did was to say hey, this is the way to earn your p. E. Credits. Just getting kids to go try it was one of our initial challenges for the first year or two. But now that weve been doing it three or four years, we have a group of kids thats consistent, and the word has spread, that its super fun, that you learn about the ocean. Starting in the morning, you know, i get the vehicles ready, and then, i get all the gear together, and then, i drive and go get the kids, and we take them to a local beach. We usually go to linda mar, and then occasionally ocean beach. We once did a special trip. We were in capitola last year, and it was really fun. We get in a circle and group stretch, and we talk about specific safety for the day, and then, we go down to the water. Once we go to the beach, i dont want to go home. I cant change my circumstances at home, but i can change the way i approach them. Our program has definitely been a way for our students to find community and build friends. I dont really talk to friends, so i guess when i started doing city surf, i started to, like, get to know people more than i did before, and people that i didnt think id like, like, ended up being my best friends. Its a group sport the way we do it, and with, like, close camaraderie, but everybodys doing it for themselves. Its great, surfing around, finding new people and making new friendships with people throughout surfing. It can be highly developmental for students to have this time where they can learn a lot about themselves while negotiating the waves. I feel significantly, like, calmer. It definitely helps if im, like, feeling really stressed or, like, feeling really anxious about surfing, and i go surfing, and then, i just feel, like, im going to be okay. It gives them resiliency skills and helps them build selfconfidence. And with that, they can use that in other parts of their lives. I went to bring amy family o the beach and tell them what i did. I saw kids open up in the ocean, and i got to see them connect with other students, and i got to see them fail, you know, and get up and get back on the board and experience success, and really enjoy themselves and make a connection to nature at the same time. For some kids that are, like, resistant to, like, being in a Mentorship Program like this, its they want to surf, and then later, theyll find out that theyve, like, made this community connection. I think they provided level playing fields for kids to be themselves in an open environment. For kids to feel like i can go for it and take a chance that i might not have been willing to do on my own is really special. We go on 150 surf outings a year. Thats yearround programming. Weve seen a tremendous amount of youth face their fears through surfing, and that has translated to growth in other facets of their lives. I just think the biggest thing is, like, that they feel like that they have something that is really cool, that theyre engaged in, and that we, like, care about them and how theyre doing, like, in general. What i like best is they really care about me, like, im not alone, and i have a group of people that i can go to, and, also, surfing is fun. Were creating surfers, and were changing the face of surfing. The feeling is definitely akin to being on a roller coaster. Its definitely faster than i think you expect it to be, but its definitely fun. It leaves you feeling really, really positive about what that kids going to go out and do. I think its really magical almost. At least it was for me. It was really exciting when i caught my first wave. I felt like i was, like it was, like, magical, really. When they catch that first wave, and their first lights up, you know their face lights up, you know you have them hooked. I was on top of the world. Its amazing. I felt like i was on top of the world even though i was probably going two miles an hour. It was, like, the scariest thing id ever done, and i think it was when i got hooked on surfing after right before the game starts, if im still on the field, i look around, and i just take a deep breath because it is so exciting and magical, not knowing what the season holds holds is very, very exciting. It was fastpaced, stressful, but the good kind of stressful, high energy. There was a crowd to entertain, it was overwhelming in a good way, and i really, really enjoyed it. I continued working for the grizzlies for the 20122013 season, and out of happenstance, the same job opened up for the San Francisco giants. I applied, not knowing if i would get it, but i would kick myself if i didnt apply. I was so nervous, i never lived anywhere outside of fridays know, andfridays fresno, and i got an interview. And then, i got a second interview, and i got more nervous because know the thought of leaving fresno and my family and friends was scary, but this opportunity was on the other side. But i had to try, and lo and behold, i got the job, and my first day was january 14, 2014. Every game day was a puzzle, and i have to figure out how to put the pieces together. I have two features that are 30 seconds long or a minute and a 30 feature. Its fun to put that altogetl r together and then lay that out in a way that is entertaining for the fans. A lucky seat there and there, and then, some lucky games that include players. And then ill talk to lucille, can you take the shirt gun to the bleachers. I just organize it from top to bottom, and its just fun for me. Something, we dont know how its going to go, and it can be a huge hit, but youve got to try it. Or if it fails, you just wont do it again. Or you tweak it. When that all pans out, you go oh, we did that. We did that as a team. I have a great team. We all gel well together. It keeps the show going. The fans are here to see the teams, but also to be entertained, and thats our job. I have wonderful female role models that i look up to here at the giants, and theyve been great mentors for me, so i aspire to be like them one day. Renelle is the best. Shes all about women in the workforce, shes always in our corner. [applause] i enjoy how progressive the giants are. We have had the longer running until they secure day. Weve been doing lgbt night longer than most teams. I enjoy that i work for an organization who supports that and is all inclusive. That means a lot to me, and i wouldnt have it any other way. I wasnt sure i was going to get this job, but i went for it, and i got it, and my first season, we won a world series even if we hadnt have won or gone all the way, i still would have learned. Ive grown more in the past four years professionally than i think ive grown in my entire adult life, so its been eye opening and a wonderful learning