Al fresco dining * Might * Restart in Bay Area by second week of February

The era of al fresco dining in San Francisco – and elsewhere in the Bay – could resume in about three weeks, or so, according to state projections of critical care capacity linked to COVID.

As you are probably aware, the current lockdown orders were not the work of the Mayor of London Breed or any other mayor or director of public health, but came to the command of Governor Gavin Newsom at the regional level. While San Francisco and four other Bay Area counties began their stay-at-home orders about 10 days earlier than expected in December, the region-wide order went into effect on December 18 and will only be lifted when the state expects the availability of ICU beds to decline to 15% or more within four weeks.

As the Chronicle reported on Thursday, the Greater Sacramento area (which includes Tahoe and a total of 13 counties) saw its state order lifted this week not because it hit 15% bed availability. in intensive care, but because it is scheduled for soon.

Meanwhile, the Bay Area’s intensive care availability fell to its lowest level since the pandemic began on Monday, dropping below 1%, but luckily it was back to 4.7% in midweek and could have an increasing trend.

Currently, via California’s COVID Assessment Tool, the earliest possible for the Bay Area to see its orders lifted would be February 7 – although the outlook may change by next week. And while San Francisco and Alameda County have increased capacity in recent days, according to the Chronicle, other counties are lowering the region’s average – such as Santa Cruz County, which had 0% availability for care. intensive in the middle of the week.

San Francisco restaurants that have invested in outdoor parklets, etc. are eager to reopen for dining, and the science jury is still out on whether outdoor dining poses a significant risk of transmission of the disease. COVID.

Experts have warned, however, just as trends may be heading in the right direction locally, that the new, more contagious British variant of the coronavirus is actively spreading in the United States – and that it could become the dominant strain here by March. The strain spread widely in the UK even as lockdown orders were in place, suggesting that regular “essential” activities (not to mention meals) may be more risky for transmission than with the strains original virus.

Photo: SFist