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San Francisco issued a travel order effective Friday requiring anyone visiting the city outside of the Bay Area to be quarantined for 10 days.
The order, announced in a virtual press conference by Dr Grant Colfax, the city’s director of public health, is effective at 12:01 a.m. Friday. It is a crime to violate the order. Medical workers, first responders and essential workers are exempt.
Colfax called the rise in coronavirus cases in the Bay Area “staggering,” but added the disaster could still be avoided if residents stay with their households during the holidays and refrain from travel.
“Although the cases remain far too high, the rate of increase of this virus has slowed down a bit, indicating that we still have time to reverse this dire situation and, as a result, save hundreds of lives,” Colfax said.
The San Francisco travel order follows one issued by Santa Clara County in late November, requiring people to self-quarantine for 14 days after returning from a trip of more than 150 miles.
Hoping to keep hospital beds available, San Francisco and four other Bay Area counties passed an early stay-at-home order on Dec. 4. Despite this effort, the availability of intensive care in hospitals in the Bay Area has now fallen below 13%. San Mateo and Santa Clara counties are running low on intensive care beds, Colfax said.
If the Christmas and New Years gatherings bring more cases, the region will be in “a really dire situation,” he said. Coronavirus cases have increased 50% in San Francisco since Thanksgiving.
“Imagine not having a hospital bed for your mother or your father, your grandmother or even your child… and imagine that they are receiving sub-optimal care,” Colfax said. “Would you like that?”
San Francisco has a total of 286 intensive care beds and 207 were filled on Thursday, he said.
As the city works to contain infections, healthcare workers are starting to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Colfax said 95 medical workers were vaccinated against the virus on Wednesday and 180 more are expected to receive the injections on Thursday. A second dose will be needed weeks later.
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