This report is published in two parts. Part 1 reviews the City’s timeline of response in the first three months of the COVID-19 outbreak and existing data on Latinx workers as essential workers in the City. Part 2 hears directly from six essential Latinx workers who contracted COVID-19 in San Francisco while on the job during the initial lockdown phase and about their experience seeking and accessing help when they were sick.
Compared to other large cities, San Francisco has fared remarkably well in limiting infections since the first novel coronavirus cases were reported three months ago. The early shelter-in-place order issued across five Bay Area counties, including San Francisco, on March 16 was crucial to this outcome. In the last two weeks, the curve of daily confirmed COVID-19 cases and the number of patients hospitalized in acute care and intensive care units started trending down in the City.
Last week, on May 28, Mayor London Breed drew a new timeline and plan for safely reopening San Francisco. This hopeful turn in the epidemic restrictions, however, came with strict health orders that indefinitely extended the shelter-in-place order and made wearing facemasks mandatory outside.
For the rest of the year, the valve on health order restrictions will open and close; it will be touch and go, depending on the rise and fall of infections in the weeks to come. Officials will need to collect and share as much information as possible about the virus and how the virus is moving within our communities for everyone to be on board with the next steps.
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