Transcripts For SFGTV Mayors Press Availability 20240713

Tumlin, police chief, bill scott, and we have a special guest today from the Interface Council who will be speaking directly after my comments. As of today, we have confirmed 676 cases of the coronavirus, sadly, 10 people have passed away as a result of this disease. This is clearly a challenging time for San Francisco. What we have done time and time again, especially during this press conference is to reiterate is importance of staying at home. We know that a couple weekends ago we had real challenges with that. Over the past two weekends people complied and have been wonderful. We also think that weather might have played a role in that because it was rain, it wasnt as nice as it will be this weekend. I want be to remind people. It is important to really maintain our physical distance when we are out in public. We may need to run errands and take walks and we are hearing about a lot of data that indicates the early signs that San Francisco is in a decent place. The fact is, we need to be mindful that this virus is out there. We cannot get comfortable. We cannot get complacent because as well as it may seem like we are doing, as you can see, those numbers are still going up. We anticipate that they would be even higher and the worst is yet to come. I just want us to be mindful of the need to continue to follow the stay at home order and place comply. It has been almost a month. I know people are anxious and frustrated and wondering when will we get back to normal as we know it . I just want to reiterate that unfortunately now is a time for sacrifice and the sacrifice is for all of us to follow the order so that when this is over we can look back and look at, you know, the number of lives we possibly were able to save as a result of following the order. I just want to reiterate and talk about a couple things that we have planned for the coming week as well as provide you with some important updates because we know that this is a very challenging time. Not only is it challenging for people physically because of our concerns about the virus, but it is also having an impact on the Mental Health of so many people. Our First Responders are folks that we want to make sure are welltaken care of. They are working long hours under an enormous amount of stress. What i reiterated to people especially out there on the front lines working for the city, it is important we are doing everything we can to take care of the public. We have to make sure we take care of ourselves and our Mental Health. One way we are supporting the health of First Responders and other front line workers is through efforts like city test sf, the new covid19 testing facility which opened this past monday. It is not just about physical health. We need to provide the necessary Mental Health support. Today we are announcing an expansion of Mental Health resources for First Responders and City Employees. We will now be providing 24 7 oneonone counseling for any First Responder or any City Employee who is in need. If employees require longterm Mental Health counseling, they will be connected to Mental Health professionals provided by their healthcare plan. Our firefighters, police, sheriffs and 911 operators will have access to customized app on their phone to easily connect to this program and other Mental Health resources. It is not just enough to provide that support to First Responders. Our healthcare workers are under an enormous amount of pressure during this global pandemic. We need to do everything we can to support them. Today we are launching a new program called heal San Francisco to support healthcare workers throughout San Francisco. Heal San Francisco will provide free Mental Health services for public, private, nonprivate Health Care Workers with the covid19 counseling project. Licensed clinicals are volunteering time to support front line healthcare workers. Healthcare staff interested in heal San Francisco should speak with their hr department. They can help you sign up for this program. I also would like to take this opportunity to just really encourage people to take a moment to make sure that you are taking care much yourselves, taking care of your families. We know that this is having a tremendous impact on peoples Public Health but also just in general Mental Health plays an Important Role in that. We need to think about ways to be positive, to be supportive, we can be encouraging during this time because we all are going through this and we are in this together. On monday, dr. Colfax spoke to our efforts to increase capacity in our hospitals. We have increased our capacity. In fact in our intensive care unit beds we have increased our beds by 91 in our i c. U. S to 530 beds. We started with two 00 citywide. Now we are a at 5 30. Acute beds increase to 1068 beds total. While we are preparing hospitals, we know that all of our communications and communities need to access care, including communities traditionally underserved. Because we know that we cant just neglect other healthcare needs that we know people are experiencing. Yesterday we opened our first field care clinic at the Southeast Center in the bayviewhunters point community. This location will serve the surrounding community. It can serve up to 100 patients per day providing primary care, urgent care and screening for covid19. I want to be clear screening, not necessarily testing. Screening can provide an opportunity for testing. Ultimately we want be to make sure if you are not feeling good to the point where you need to go to the hospital, this is an opportunity to go to the local clinic and get the help and support that you need. Depending on the urgent care needs and extent of the hospital surge, we can mobilize up to three additional field care clinic nears existing Healthcare Centers as stand alone site. We will not just stop at bayviewhunters point, we want clinics all over the city to reduce other services in our hospitals. Field care clinics will help reduce the number of patients needing to go to the hospital, urgent care and Emergency Rooms which will help keep our hospitals focused on covid19 patients that we all know need to be served. Another need we have in some of our communities are more public toilets. A lot of people are struggling on our streets. We have fewer places to use the bathroom especially since so many locations are now closed. Starting today, our Public Works Department will be deploying the first five of 15 portable bathrooms and hand washing stations in the city. Public works with the department of homeless necessary to identify the high needs area in the tenderloin, castro andnition neighborhoods. Mission neighborhoods. These will be open 24 7 so everyone has access to a bathroom to keep hands clean to prevent the spread of this disease. I want to thank urban who will staff these for continuing the work to support public spaces. It is an incredible program. They are the folks monitoring all of our public restrooms. They e extended capacity to help us. These bathrooms are critical for making sure people have a bathroom to access and helping keep streets clean. Public works street cleaners are out there ever every day. I want to thank them for cleaning the streets, emptying the trash, thanking them to continuing to respond to 311 calls where there is illegal dumping, Power Washing sidewalks and the work they are doing every day. The hardworking men of the Public Works Department are doing everything to keep our streets as clean as possible. Thank you for your service. Yesterday we launched a new covid19 data tracker that greatly expands the amount of information we are able to provide to the public. As we said from the beginning, the decisions we are making are based off the recommendations of Public Health data and science. It is important that we try to be as transparent as we can with the information we are using to make the decisions that we are making. And that the public can see the effects of those decisions. This information is hosted by data sf website. Find it by going to data sf. Org. Dr. Colfax will provide an overview of this information and we will continue to add to this platform so that we can provide as much information as possible. I do know that people want to know what is going on, who has been impacted . People want to see the data. They want to know what is happening. Many of you know the challenges we have the Public Health have a lot to do, the ability to provide information has a lot to do with privacy lots around someones personal healthcare. As much information as we are able to share we will share that information with you. In the meantime, there are a lot of tools created out there, and one of the tools i personally started using is how we feel. It is an app that i uploaded on my phone. It tracks data and i basically log in every day. It asks how i feel and asks about my activities and locks in my zip code. This could help. John Hopkins University is facilitating this tool. It helps potentially predict based on zip code the hotspots related to the coronavirus. The more people we track and we know what is going on the better we can identify locations and figure out where there might be challenges in the future. That is just something i think will be a great tool to help us track this. I also want to just say as i mentioned in the beginning of this press conference. We know the early data has been very encouraging so far, i want to just again reiterate we are not out of the woods. We are not in a place where we can get comfortable. San francisco is, as you know, receiving praise from all over the country. People, governors, mayors and other leaders throughout the country have reached out to me personally to ask a number of questions about some of the programs and things we are implementing because we were one of the first cities in the country to move forward with the stay at home order. While i am proud of what we have done, we cant let up. We cant get comfortable or complacent. We have a long way to go, and i want to reiterate how physical distancing ourselves from people as hard as it has been is necessary. It is necessary to deal with this pandemic, and i know that a lot of time has gone by, and i know that people are starting to feel again anxious and uncertain and frustrated. I just want to remind you that this will pay off, and this too shall pass. We also know this upcoming weekend is easter sunday. Tonight we celebrate passover. For people who are religious and spiritual like myself, every year since i was a kid, easter was the holiday i looked forward to the most. It signified the end of the rainy season and it also signified a new beginning, spring, sun was coming out. We would go outside to play, get new dresses for church, and so many great things. It brings back happy memories of Easter Basket fun and family and food and tradition. I know how hard it is for people who are religious, spiritual as they celebrate this very significant time, how hard it is going to be for many of you to basically stay at home and not go to church on sunday. It is hard for me not to do that as well. I want to impress upon you this is the first time this has ever happened to any of us during this time, and there are other weighs in which we can celebrate. Many services are doing online service. I know that many pastors and a number of priests and folks in the religious community are reaching out to congregations and connecting members with other members of the congregations who may not have access to social media so they can check on their members of their congregation to make sure they get the support and conversation and prayers tha tht they need. I want to reiterate how important it is as hard as it will be to stay at home on sunday, it is necessary. It is necessary for not only your own personal health but also the health of the people that you love. Especially when you think about many members of our elderly community, those who are the most vulnerable. We want to make sure we do everything we can to protect them. The way we protect the people we love and care about is to stay home and follow this order and to continue to uplift one another with our prayers, with our good thoughts, with our phone calls, with the things that can really help get us through this very, very challenging time. We are in this together, as i said. Part of being in this together means that we take the responsibility for one another to support and uplift and look out for one another. I am just really asking so many of the leaders of our religious community to continue to do your very best to communicate to your members how important this is. I also want to just go back to something that just happened a couple weeks ago that i read in the paper about a church in Washington State where 45 members of the choir came together, they had aquir a choir rehearsal and sadly not only did the 45 members get diagnosed with covid19, two people from the choir passed away. We want you to understand that this is really why it is important that you stay at home and that you look for religious services on television and reach out to your congregation and try to make sure people who would want to and would definitely be at church this sunday during this very holy time for so many of us that that is not the case. We are here to uplift you. We are here to continue to pray for you and to support you, and we just ask that you follow the stay at home order because this is going to be so critical to the Public Health of not only you and your family members but the rest of the city. Here to talk a little bit more about the religious community and someone who has been an incredible leader and who has brought together different faiths because regardless of what faith we are part of, we are still part of religious community that puts love and puts support ahead of everything else, and we come together to offer prayers and to offer support during this very difficult time for each and every one of us. I have heard so many pastors and priests say this is the most important time as we go through this pandemic, this is when we need each other and need prayers more than anything else. There is a way to continue to do that. The Inter Faith Council has played a vital role in reaching out and pushing for that message and to make sure that people get the help and support they need. Here to speak on behalf of the inner Faith Council is the executive director, michael poppus. Thank you very much, mayor breed, for this invitation to address San Francisco today. I want to thank the mayor on behalf of the 800 religious institutions for her leadership in very early on addressing and responding to this covid virus. There is no doubt that numerous lives have been saved. We are a model for the nation as a result. I have been thinking deep in the heart about services in each of our services it is an ageold tradition. We pray for our civil authorities and those who protect us. Those words have never had more meaning than they have now. I want to thank the mayor for her leadership and, you know, we are not only just praying, but since the declaration of emergency wasnt acted and the Community Branch was activated, the San Francisco inner Faith Council works arm and arm with the city to make sure that our leadership in all of our different houses of worship are appraised of uptodate information, aggressive recommendations and public orders from the department of Public Health on what needs to happen. I want to just commend the faith leaders of San Francisco for very quickly pivoting and closing their church doors, closing their mosques and synagogues and temples and using the best that technology has to Foster Community in the midst of isolation. In addition to this, they have been reaching out personally by telephone to their congregants. This is significant because they are some of the most vulnerable citizens in our city and county. We are ambassadors of the city to help in this emergency and this Public Health crisis. I would like to say, also, that and to reiterate the importance of staying home. We are entering into the most holy days for the christian and Jewish Community but also in short time the Muslim Community which will enter raum don. The importance of worshiping virtually is something that we need to stress. The San Francisco inner Faith Council has been harvesting, compiling and making available to our greater communities a particular link where all can access online worship. That would be at sf inner Faith Council. Org. We would encourage you to go there. We would encourage you to join your communities at worship during this season. We know that this season will always be remembered in the years to come, and i just want to express my gratitude to the many faith leaders on the front lines with some of our most vulnerable residents in San Francisco. Ministering in a way they never imagined. I want to make a small confession. Some weeks ago when i heard that people were encouraging people to go to worship on these holy days, i was troubled because i think that in doing so you put at risk the welfare and the health and safety of those who are entrusted to your care. I am so pleased here in San Francisco without exception to my knowledge that i have not heard of one community of faith who is encouraging that, and i want to wish you all a very, very blessed easter andsover and may god bless our world, our nation and our city. May god bless our mayor. At this point it is my distinct privilege to introduce the director of Public Health, doctor grant colfax. Good afternoon. I am doctor grant colfax, director of health. Thank you may or breed an and executive director for your support. Thank you for your sacrifice and community spirits. As we join together we are helping fight the spread of the coronavirus. When you stay home, when you stay six feet apart from people, wash your hands and when you cover your nose and mouth with cloth, you are literally saving lives. I would also like to update san franciscans on a few developments in our ongoing work to respond to the coronavirus and to protect our community. I usually begin updates by summarizing the number of cases in the city and key data points. Today i am glad to be able to share this information using a new tool that we have created for the public. The San Francisco covid19 data tracker went up yesterday. It is a new online resource that will provide daily updates of key data that describe the impact of the coronavirus in San Francisco. Data are an important tool to help san franciscans see the picture of the coronavirus in our community. This knowledge will help us all do our part and see over time how this situation is changing. Our data analysts have been working tirelessly to collect information from across the city and create accurate i want to stress accurate reliable reports to guide our decisions and inform the public. The department of Public Health collaborated with the controller and open data sf and Emergency Management and i want to thank all colleagues for hard work and support. The tracker features information about cases, demographics of patients, hospitalizations and testing. We will add more Data Elements and they will be updated as we gather more information and continue to improve the tracker. Lets review the tracker now and go to the first slide. As you can see, today there are 676 San Francisco residents with confirmed cases of coronavirus out of 5994 test results. We will get to the testing patterns. Sadly, 10 san franciscans died from the disease. I would like to send my condolences on behalf of the entire department to their families, loved ones and friends. Now, we will continue to walk through the tracker. The report shows clearly that cases have been rising steadily since our first two cases were confirmed on march 5th. From march 5th to the data we are presenting today we have had dramatic increases in cases. I expect these increases to continue as coronavirus continues to spread throughout the community and as we increase our testing capacity. The more we test for the disease, the more we will find the disease. We do not know yet when we will peak. I also note that San Francisco has had no cases from travelers, which was such an early focus of the global coronavirus outbreak in december and january. Instead, the clear majority of cases are from community contact. This tells us and reinforces vitally how important it is for us to continue to stay at home and to practice physical distancing. This is one of the most important Public Health interventions we have. This is a vital tool. Please continue to socially distance. Now, lets move to slide two with regard to testing. As you can see on this slide, we have tested nearly 6,000 people in the city to date. We started with our own Public Health lab at the departments on march 2nd and have steadily added capacity at the zuckerberg San Francisco general lab and other labs and other commercial labs. We have developed great partnerships to ensure city workers and First Responders are able to be tested quickly. What is interesting here is the jagged line showing the percentage of tests that turnout positive. So far we are averaging 13 . It is very important on thisgraph to look at the trend over time. One day of high or low positive result is not the information that is vitally important here. It is really looking at the trend over time. Lets move to slide three. This shows hospital data. This is Important Information that i study carefully. The number of cases in the hospital and the number of those in intensive care is the best indicator of how our Healthcare System is going to be strained. Here we see the number of patients with coronavirus in hospital beds across the city. This tracker includes data from nine Hospital Systems. The tracker shows that there are 83 people in the hospital with diagnosed coronavirus. Roughly half are in the intensive care unit. The reason this information is so important is that it shows us the sickest people, those who are most in need of care. It also helps us measure the expected surge of hospital patients. You can see that there has been an increase since the data has been assessed. Not perhaps as rapidly as some other jurisdictions, but still a steady increase in numbers of hospital patients. So far, the numbers continue to go up, but they havent been rising at a rate faster than we can handle. I encourage all san franciscans to cut the data tracker and see how we are doing as a city. Working together we can flatten the curve and slowdown the spread of the virus. It is still a rapidly changing situation and we must not, cannot become place sent. We must continue social distancing. We must continue to remain resolute in this work in order to not see a dramatic surge of cases in our community. This virus will take off otherwise. I mentioned hospital surge planning. Every day that we prepare is a good day. All of our San Francisco hospitals are making way. Yesterday we opened a field care clinic in the southeast part of the city. To ensure that residents there can continue to get urgent care while keeping hospitals Urgent Care Services from getting overwhelmed. This field care clinic is an extension of the Southeast Health center, one of our vital primary care clinics in the department of Public Health system. The clinic will be open to the neighborhood and over time may expand to treat people from throughout the city. It is part of our hospital surge planning, and we have plans to open up to three more clinics like this if they are needed. As we continue together to fight the coronavirus pandemic, i would like to remind all of you that our top priority as a community are reducing the spread and slowing the spread of the virus in the community, protecting vulnerable populations, healthcare workers and First Responders, preparing our Health System for an expected surge of hospital patients, and expanding testing capabilities. In all of this work, we seek to continually do better as we incorporate the latest science, data and facts into our actions and recommendations. We are working quickly, as quickly as possible to integrate new information all of the time and adjust our recommendations accordingly. We are providing you the very best and most uptodate data and advice that we can. Now, i would like to provide an update on laguna honda hospital and the steps we are taking to protect residents and staff. We now have 17 confirmed cases of coronavirus at laguna honda. 13 of the confirmed cases are among staff and four are among residents. Of the staff, 10 have been in patient care positions and three have not. All four positive resident cases are in the south five ward or neighborhood. We retested the residents of south five this past week end and received only one positive result, which brought our total to four. We also tested all residents in the south four neighborhood on monday and have not received any positive results yet. The sum of those results are still pending today. Staff retesting on both units is continuing today. Overall, to date 298 laguna hospital staff have been tested either by the department of Public Health or their own healthcare provider. 208 residents have been tested. As part of our ongoing outbreak response, we continue to test staff and patients throughout the hospital who have been identified as being exposed through contact investigation or show symptoms of the virus. Unfortunately, we do expect more positive cases, but it is crucial that we know the facts so we can take evidence and informed action to preserve the health and mitigate the spread of the virus in the institution. We are working hard to keep our residents, their families and staff as supported and updated as possible. This weekend we launched a daily update via phone torres dents and families. When they call they will access a prerecorded covid19 update. It will be updated every day seven days each week at noon in multiple languages. It will include the number of cases, the units unquarantining and other key operational changes we are making to limit the spread of the virus. I encourage families and loved ones to call for these updates. The number is 415 7592190. This is a very challenging time for our laguna honda staff and residents. We will provide extra resources to support staff and residents coping with the impact of the outbreak. For example the chaplain is available for Spiritual Services and guidance for staff and residents. We have opened a dedicated phone line. Staffed by clinicians to provide emotional support to residents in realtime. This support is in addition to the regular Clinical Behavioral Health services. We also have a Behavioral Health specialist on site dedicated to staff needs who is proactively reaching out to the staff on the two units that have been impacted to provide support and coping mechanisms. The Behavioral Health specialist is available to all staff and our clinicians will continue to reach out to provide services. We know, i know that caring for the most vulnerable is some of the most intense and selfless work in the city. I am grateful to the compassion of the laguna honda team. They are true heroes. With regard to Infection Prevention and control, laguna honda continues so receive support from the centers of Disease Control and prevention within affection nurses physicians and epidemiologists. The cdc continues to guide laguna honda in screening and retesting of staff from the two quarantined units. The experts with the staff is conducting thorough contact investigations to look for sources of infection and the potential pathway of further spread. This will inform our current actions and further development of outbreak prevention and response that takes the coronavirus situation fully into account. The cdc has also developed a web tracking system for every staff person identified as symptommic during screening or who calls in sick. This data will be instrumental to limit the spread of the virus by providing important data as Staffing Levels and duration of illness among staff for covid r covid19. They have selfscreening prior to arriving at work. Under cdc guidance, laguna honda improved the Infection Control Program Using the best practices from top experts to be integrated into daytoday operations. These include all aspects of operation from deep cleaning infected rooms, transfer of acute patients to screening of staff. We are taking the knowledge and the learning from the cdc and rapidly applying through establishing training, learning and realtime coaching to ensure laguna honda has the protocols in place regardless of the on site presence of the cdc. I am most grateful for the cdc support and expertise. This is an ever changing situation and the ability to develop and rapidly implement best practices will help slow the spread of the virus not only at laguna honda hospital but also at other residential nursing facilities in the city and region. Again, i want be to thank the staff of laguna honda, residents and families for their resilience and capacity to be part of our response to this pandemic. Thank you very much. Director trent rhorer from the Human Services agency will now make remarks. Good afternoon. I am trent rhorer, director of the Human Services agency of San Francisco. I want today to give everyone an update on our plan for hoteling as well as providing other housing and supports for individuals during this pandemic. As i said before, the Human Services agency is charged with providing care and shelter for the City Residents under this pandemic. On march 9th our agency activated the Emergency Operations center in the expectation we were going to need to respond in a massive way to provide rooms and other Housing Options for individuals under covid19. Under the mayors leadership we met early on with the hotel council, which is the group of hotel owners in San Francisco representing over 80 hotels in the city to ask for their assistance to provide hotel rooms for the most Vulnerable People in San Francisco. The response to our request for beds was overwhelming. We received responses from over 45 hotels representing more than 10,000 rooms. These rooms were listed in the rpp for the following population. First those covid covid positive or persons under investigation meaning they are tested and the results are not yet in. In addition these are individuals who cannot selfquarantine on their own. Their current housing does not allow them to quarantine on their own. That would be individuals in the sro or Single Room Occupancy Hotels where they share bathrooms or kitchens or eating facilities. There are about 19,000 individuals living in these situations in San Francisco. In addition, of course, our Homeless Population who live in homeless shelters, on the street are unable to selfquarantine. Second population for the hotel rooms to be provided for are vulnerable populations in homeless shelters and homeless on the streets. These are individuals that are age 60 and above or who have Underlying Health conditions for whom a covid positive would result in significant harm to them. Third category are of course the front line health responders. We want to make sure they remain healthy able to provide the essential services that they dont go home and infect families or get in effected from familiors communities. I want to give you an update on progress so far at bringing these hotels under contract. As of today we have 1977 hotel rooms under or near contract. 880 are for First Responders. 1097 are for the vulnerable populations i just listed a minute ago. The current numbers in hotels we have 184 individuals who are in the vulnerable class in hotel rooms and 67 First Responders. Of the 184 the vast majority of these individuals are homeless. As i say, every time i am describing the City Response this is a fluid situation. We arwe are responding daily to guidance from the cdc or state department of health and department of Public Health. The current plan based on the most recent evidence and data and information from those Health Authorities is that we need to bring on about 7,000 hotel rooms for the populations i described above. So our plan is to do that. We have begun our costing out of the plan, and i want to talk a little bit about those figures now. The current 1977 rooms we have under contract will cost the city about 35 million over the first three months of activation. The plan for the 7,000 hotel rooms will cost over 105 million over that same three month period. In a sense our total activation or plan of 7,000 rooms will cost approximately 105 million. This cost does include estimates for staff costs, it includes supplies for cleaning and the other essential elements that we need to bring on the hotel rooms. It is important to note that fema provided guidance to the state of california. They will reimburse states and localities up to 75 of the costs of these hotel rooms but only for specific populations. The populations fema will provide the 75 reimbursement for are those covid positive or those who have come in contact with someone covid positive, individuals with Underlying Health conditions that i described earlier, individuals age 65 and over an what will be covered at 75 by fema. Our plan in San Francisco we consider age 60 and above to be vulnerable. There will be a segment of the population we are bringing to hotel rooms not reimbursed by fema. In addition the state of california through the governor provided across the state 150 million to counties to help cover the cost of these hotel rooms. San francisco will receive a share of that 150 million to be applied toward the 105 million cost i mentioned a minute ago. Lastly, i want to mention the plans for sheltering. This is the one piece every response that is most fluid. Initially on march 9th the plans across the state were to open additional shelters to thin out our shelter populations. Subsequent to that, and i will say we had plans for 2500 shelter beds to do this. As an example, the city of los angeles is standing up 46 rec center for shelter beds. From the state department of health we received guidance those shelters are not appropriate. We experienced that in San Francisco. We have had covid outbreaks at two of our shelters. We immediately shifted gears and pivoted from using moscone north to reduce the population in existing shelters and moscone north will serve for medically cleared Homeless Individuals, as a step down from hotel rooms. They have been tested negative or they had acquired covid and have since recovered and been tested clear. If they choose to, they can receive a shot at the moscone west shelter with the appropriate physical distancing as well. The second shelter that we are setting up is at the palace of fine arts. It has room for 160 individuals. Because this response is so fluid, what we are doing is setting up this shelter to respond to whatever need that may emerge. We are currently not planning to move individuals into that shelter at this time, but we have that under agreement and it makes sense to have relief valve of 160 slots for individuals should that need arise. We are in constant conversation with the department of homelessness and supportive housing, City Department of Public Health regarding the potential use for this space. So i just want be to wrap up again by restating the populations we are providing hotel rooms to so we are clear. Covid positive and persons under investigation, they have had a test and need quarantined and they cant at home. Vulnerable individuals on the streets and shelters to provide a safe place to protect from the virus. First line responders. We are planning for 7,000 rooms for that purpose, and we have nearly 2000 rooms under contract now. Now, i will turn the podium over to San Francisco police chief william scott. Chief scott. Good afternoon everyone. I would like to begin with thanks and a show of appreciation to our mayor for her leadership during this crisis, particularly in the resources provided to our First Responders, Police Officers and members of the San Francisco Police Department, other First Responders and other City Employees. We have had many members that have had a lot of stress and anxiety related to this pandemic. The resources the mayor has described today will be extremely helpful in helping us to deal with this pandemic and the anxiety and stresses that go along with that. Also, in terms of increasing resiliency to do what we need to do to cope our Community Safe and healthy. I thank the may important and everybody that had apart in making this happen. By taking care of First Responders and City Employees we will have a safe and healthy San Francisco and be in a box to help the residents of our city. Thanks again for that work. I want to speak a little bit about our compliance in the city overall. We are seeing good compliance. That is mentioned by the mayor and others, including dr. Colfax. We still have challenges. The statistics i provided for you on monday as far as citations are still valid. We have two citations on individuals. I want to provide an update on the other statistics. I reported monday we had issued 26 warnings or add mommishments that is now 41. Ththe majority are to businesses deemed to be nonessential. We are tracking, taking reports and as i said we will not ask a second time. For those businesses that are operating we do understand and we are very empathetic to the fact that this is Uncharted Waters for all of us, and this impacted peoples livelihood and there is stress and anxiety. What w we are trying to do is to keep people alive. Please add here to the Public Health orders. Keep doing well as we have seen for the first three weeks of the order. As far as crime. We are still seeing downward trends in terms of rates of crime. I want to go in a little more detail than i did the other day in terms of Crime Statistics the past week. 24 decrease in Violent Crimes is a decrease in 19 crimes. 71 the week before and 58 this week. Property crimes we saw alarminger decrease. 146 fewer property crimes and that number went from 569 to 455. Our part one overall crimes we are down 165 over the prior week. We are seeing decreases, but we want to emphasize our officers are out in force. They are out patrolling the streets, and we would like to see that trend continue. Particularly we are focused on the businesses boarded up and closed. We know those businesses feel vulnerable and the owners feel the businesses are vulnerable. We pay extra attention to that. We have had burglaries and vandalisms of businesses. We have made arrests and we will control those areas to give a sense of comfort to those who closed businesses. We encourage all people to report crime when and if they see it, and there are some crimes as i mentioned that you can report online or call our call center. If it is a crime of violence or crime in progress, serious crime, please call 911. Continue to do that. We will respond, and one of the silvesilver linings is that trac is light. Our Response Time has gotten much, much better because of the light traffic. We will be there if you call us. For crimes that have already taken place annan violent property crimes calm 415 5530123. You can call 311 or utilize our San Francisco Police Website to file a Police Report or request an existing Police Report. I want to reemphasize some of the scams we have heard about. We have not had this particular one in our city but it is online. We hear people talk about it. We want to advise and warn the public so people can remain safe. We have had a number of online posts about people knocking on doors asking to come into residential communities and they are claiming to be center for Disease Control workers or San Francisco department of Public Health workers. I want to inform the Public Workers from the San Francisco department of Public Health or workers from the centers for Disease Control will not knock on your door and ask to come inside your house or residence. Dont let people in. If you get that it is not legitimate. Be aware and be informed and call 911 if that happens to you. We have our City Disaster Service Workers placing door hangers on businesses and doors. Be aware of that. Informational pamphlets to keep the public informed to help with the cause of staying at home and staying six feet apart in the social distancing requirement we have been asked to do. They will not ask to come inside your residence. Please make note of that. If you have somebody reporting to be a worker from any of those entities or any city worker do not let them into your home. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Dont fall for things that sound too good to be true. Investigate and call somebody you trust. These particular individuals like to prey on the elderly and most vulnerable population. Be aware of that. If you know someone in those demographics please spread the word so we dont have anyone taken advantage of. Robocalls, emails, Online Sellers are also sources of scams. Please be careful and not fall prey to that. If you are asked to click a link you are unfamiliar with, be cautious about that and investigate the site to make sure you are not being scammed that way. If you are receiving online type of fraudulent or scam activity, you can call the federal trade commission at 877 3824357. As the mayor said, we expect that the weather will be nice this weekend, and we believe the weather has played a part in helping keep some of the people off the streets in the past few days. As weather increases, we ask again to please comply with the Public Health orders, social distancing requirement. If you have to go out for shopping like groceries stay six feet away from the person in front of you or behind you. It is really important. We ask the store managers and owners and leadership at these particular out lets help out with that cause as they are required to. The last thing i would like to say is for the Overall Health of the Police Department and wellness, nothing to update there. Again, i would like to thank our mayor london breed, director of Public Health, doctor grant coal fograntcolfax. Keep our foot on the pedal and do what we have been asked to do and stay safe and healthy. Thank you. Thank you. Our first questions are for doctor grant colfax. This question is from jamie at the associated press. Last week trent rhorer said 123 people, of whom 95 are homeless, had been moved from hospital beds to hotel rooms because they tested positive and needed to isolate or were awaiting test results. Why are these people not counted in the citys overall number of homeless who tested positive for covid19, which is three . Let me clarify on that number. Currently we have 167 people who have been moved out of the hospital who are either covid19 positive or under investigation. Those include people who have no other place to go that is safe. That would include a high proportion of Homeless Individuals. Also it includes people in crowded Living Conditions and other places where they cannot go and safely isolate. It is a combination of those populations. Again, that is very important intervention to keep our Hospital System as open as possible. With regard to the people, the three people mentioned, we have four cases now of people who have been diagnosed in a shelter or navigation center. The msp south is for three cases. We are working hard with data systems to provide an accurate number of people experiencing homelessness diagnosed with covid19. This testing is done throughout the city by different providers including private labs. Our understanding is that private labs do not assess the housing situation. Within our dph system we look to merge data sources on status of living status and covid19 positive cases. We hope to share that information. Thank you. Next question from trisha with the San Francisco chronicle. Will the city release specific data on how many covid cases are tied to Skilled Nursing facilities or longterm care facilities . If so how many cases have there been . We will release that data as it is available and we will ensure that they are accurate. Followup. Yesterday we learned one Skilled Nursing home campus for jewish living is preparing to accept covid parish aints patients. The state is working can longterm care facilities helping derm which facilities both across the state and within San Francisco could do that with regard to the need and ensuring the safety of staff and residents. I am not able to identify these facilities specifically in San Francisco out of respect for privacy. I will say that it is part of our surge planning assessing and determining where covid positive patients who require a Skilled Nursing type level of care has been part of our conversation with other Health Systems in the city. We are supporting the longterm care facilities in our collective response. We have regular communication with them. We are supporting them, and we also hope to apply the cdc recommendations from laguna honda to other partners in the city. Question from ron lynn of the los angeles times. Do you expect the shelterinplace order and forms of social distancing to last beyond the summer and into the fall or into next year . Well, unfortunately, i cannot predict the future. I am focused on what we know now. Looking at the data and science and facts. What we know now the physical distancing appears to have slowed the spread of the coronavirus in San Francisco. This is a very vulnerable time for us to ensure that that surge continues to be slow. As you can see from the data tracker, there is a steady increase in cases and hospitalizations. We must be resolute in continuing the social distancing through the shelterinplace during this time. Followup. Why are we seeing rising hospitalization cases eventhough the shelterinplace wasnt acted more than three weeks ago . Well, this virus is extremely transmissible. Despite multiple efforts early actions we knew there were going to be cases of covid19 in our city. And what we are focusing now is ensuring the Hospital Systems have capacity to provide the best care possible for people with covid19. Yes, there is an increase across the united states. Unfortunately, in our city we see a pattern. If you look across the nation, our increase has been slower so far, but again this could change any day when this virus takes off it can really take off. I would go back to Public Health intervention, social distancing, wash your hands, wear a Face Covering if you cannot keep at least six feet away from individuals, please do that and exercise restraint in your outings. Thank you. Final question for dr. Colfax from the San Francisco examer. Since the first cases were diagnosed has anyone recovered from covid19 and if so how many people . People recover from covid19, and i think we know from the data on both nationally and internationally that the majority of people and many have mild symptoms and recover well. It is really the focus on the vulnerable populations, the people who have to be hospitalized, the people in the i c. U. I think the focus needs to be on the Hospital System and the capacity there and the people who have not recovered are are e people who died. With our collective efforts of prevention and experts. I want to emphasize the expertise we have in the Health Department at zuckerberg, San Francisco general, u. C. S. F. And kaiser we have incredible leadership ensuring that as many people recover as possible. Is the department doing contact investigations for every positive case and notifying those who may have been in contact with the positive case . So we are continuing to expand our contact investigation efforts. We are ensuring that we are focusing on the most vulnerable communities with those contact investigations. Right now our capacity to do all of the Contact Tracing for every case has benumbedded, which is again why ha has been exceed. As we move forward we are ensuring that we have a robust number of contact investigators on board. Think of right now as a situation where we have as you can see from the dashboard a lot of Community Transmission. Over tight our hope, and i do not know if this will happen. Over time we hope due to social distancing that Community Transmission rate will be crease and we will go to a level where the Contact Tracing is particularly important. Think of it now as a situation where there is a steady, unfortunately, steady fire throughout the city with regard to transmission of cases. If we are successful in extinguishing this broader fire across the community, then we think about in the next stage if we get there sparks in the community. Sparks, outbreaks that are containable. Our goal is to have a robust team of Disease Control investigators to immediately respond to the sparks so we do not return to widespread Community Transmission like today. Thank you, dr. Colfax. The next questions are for mayor breed. Mayor breed, this question is from stefani at abc 7. Sf pride parade organizers have not cancelled for june. It may still happen. Do you have a response to that . Mayor breed i do. I want to start by saying pride is one of my favorite times of the year in San Francisco, and especially during this pandemic. The fact that the pride celebration potentially may not happen will be devastating to not only me personally but to so many people in our city, but we are in a different reality. I think it is important as dr. Colfax said we cant predict the future. We dont know what is going to happen in the city. We know when we start to get out of this that having large scale events will be very, very difficult. I am not certain that it will be possible at this time to say whether or not we can move forward with pride in the same capacity as we have done for many, many years. I think that once the shelter in order is lifted, there is going to be a gradual process to get the city back on track and back into some level of normalcy. I think it may not be possible to expect that we could launch a large scale event with millions of people in San Francisco. I am not sure if that is going to be realistic to expect that we will be able to host the kind of pride parade this city is known for. That is where we are at this time. John king of the San Francisco chronicle. What will mayor breed do if the emergency legislation proposed yesterday at the board is approved. Including Homeless People of all ages and Current Conditions and placing them in hotel rooms. Mayor breed i want to be clear. From the beginning we have focused on moving forward plans that are realistic, that allow us to use data, that are sustainable, that allow us to not only provide the resources necessary to make them work but to also sustain them. We have had to basically make magic happen over the past month as it relates to setting up the Emergency Operations center to focus on the Public Health crisis in staffing the hospitals, making sure the nurses and doctors have protective equipment, making sure the city work force has protective equipment, thinning out shelters to protect the people working in the shelter system. We know that it is a lot more complicated, as i said. The thing i would want to do more than anyone else is to be able to house every Single Person on the street to make sure they have a safe place to be. The fact is that comes with so much more than opening up the doors to give people a hotel room. Trent rhorer, the director of Human Services had provided an overview with a clear plan that has been changed based on what we know may work and may not work. Specifically, the change we made to moscone west, the changes we are making around the hotel rooms that we are fortunate enough to have access to and to provide the staffing for those particular locations. That will ensure safety. That will ensure that when we provide a room to someone that person is the only person who is in that rumor that person with their family members. That we are working with the hotels, that we are providing the 24 hour care and support, laundry service, food and all of the things needed. That takes a lot of people. It takes a lot of people who are part of our work force and the reality we are this is that some of those people are afraid. They are afraid to come to work. We want to make sure when we set these systems up we are not only providing places for people to be during this crisis but we are providing protection for those we are expecting to put their live on the line. We are expanding our capacity significantly quickly, and that takes a plan that is focused, that is developed, that is consistent, that is something we can actually deliver. That is really what is important for me as mayor of the city to focus on, what we know we can do and make sure we get it done and to focus our attention on elevating what we know we need in this crisis. I will really basically continue to do just that. Next questions for trent rhorer. Thank you, mayor. Trentrent rhorer, human serv. This is the San Francisco chronicle. The 7,000 hotel rooms do not include homeless not covid19 positive and not ranked as part of the vulnerable population. No ordinary homeless so to speak . Let me clarify. The 7,000 rooms we are bringing online are for covid positive, persons under investigation who cant selfquarantine and vulnerable Homeless Individuals who are living in shelter or on the streets. Vulnerable age 60 and above or Underlying Health conditions. That would make them more susceptible to the covid virus. 7,000 includes homeless on the street, shelter and covid positive and under investigation for covid. Next questions for chief bill scott. This is a question from the San Francisco chronicle. Has will been any change in calls related to Domestic Violence, increase as suggested by evidence . I can tell you what has been reported to the San Francisco Police Department. We have seen a decrease in reported Domestic Violence incidents. From the period of march 17 to march 31st is the latest reporting that i have. Compared to that time last year, we had 121 reported Domestic Violence incidents as opposed to 179 for the same period last year. We are hearing from the groups that they had an increase in calls and that might be a good thing in that people are seeking out help. We know from the science of Human Behavior that stress and anxiety and frustration can trigger violent behavior. My message is that the those things are happening seek out help. The mayor said it, public Health Professionals across the country said it. Seek out help. As far as reported we have seen a decrease for this shelterinplace stay at home period as of march 17th through march 31st. We will keep an eye on that. That is definitely something our Police Officers are watching. Some crimes are not reported. We realize that. It is another opportunity for me to encourage people to report crimes when they happen. We will be there and we will investigate. Thank you. The next questions for abigail stewart. These are the last two questions of the press conference from the San Francisco public press. Has the city run into challenge with hotel rooms with general trust issues. How are city agencies handling these challenges . That is a great question. From talking with you i know you feel that people experiencing homeless niece are just like you and me. We all have questions and worries now. We would all need support if we were asked to pick up and leave our communities and move to an unknown hotel room. As a social worker, i know the strength of every person is what we need to rely on now. I see it as the systems responsibility to set up that support so that we can rapidly meet people where they are. We have steps in place and staff from all over the city who are trained to evaluate an individuals ability to selfcare in these new environments before they move. The city is coming to help us. Our hotels are staffed with hsh heroes, nonprofits, first unite council and ecs of San Francisco and many more on the way as well as Disaster Service workers from city partners. As we scale, we will be reaching out to the most vulnerable outside through the channels and with a careful and clear process in place. We are grateful to ihss which is part of the Human Services agency who have helped so people can selfcare. We are excited that we are exploring a volunteer program that would allow people at home to regularly check in on individuals living in hotels to reduce isolation and support on site staff. We believe in San Francisco and in our community to set this up so people can shelterinplace. It is going to take all of our creativity and strength, but we are built for this. Thank you. Is the city working with homelessness related outreach groups to transition people to hotel rooms. If so which groups and what role do they play . I think i understand the question. I will answer as best i can. As we move to as director rohr said we are working on sheltered and unsheltered 60 and over people with preexisting conditions. We will work with Homeless Outreach but we are not ready for that yet. We will provide more information in the coming days how to bring them inside and we are working with those with covid19 cases. We are getting to scale rapidly and look forward to providing further updates. Thank you. Thank you very much. That concludes our press conference