There are few places in the country that have lived with more stringent COVID-19 restrictions than Los Angeles and San Francisco. Between mask mandates, vaccine promotion, indoor gatherings, and other measures, these deep blue areas were once touted to be the gold standard of response.
In fact, the rate of vaccination in both cities is significant.
Here are the numbers for Los Angeles County:
As of Sunday, 78% of eligible county residents aged 5 and up have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 70% were fully vaccinated. Of the county’s overall 10.3 million residents, 74% have received at least one dose, and 66% are fully vaccinated.
San Francisco’s numbers are even more impressive.
Mayor London N. Breed announced that as of today 80% of eligible San Francisco residents have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, with nearly 70% of all San Franciscans fully vaccinated. San Francisco is the first major American city to achieve this milestone, and the City’s vaccination rates are among the highest in the nation and the world. In addition, 90% of all residents 65 and older have received at least one dose.
However, the newest wave of COVID19 is causing cases to spike dramatically.
Los Angeles County is reporting 6,509 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, which has more than doubled since Tuesday’s count and is “one of the steepest rises we’ve ever seen over the course of the pandemic,” according to Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.”This steep increase, one of the steepest rises we’ve ever seen over the course of the pandemic, reflects the increased circulation of omicron and the associated rapid acceleration of transmission associated with this variant,” she said.Another 16 COVID deaths are being reported, and another 162 confirmed cases of the omicron variant.
San Francisco rates have also doubled in the past 5 days.
Case rates have doubled in San Francisco over just the past five days, almost certainly due to omicron spreading in the community, said Dr. Grant Colfax, head of the Department of Public Health. He said the city has now identified 32 omicron cases, but he expects there are many more…“It really picked up over the course of the last week. We went from very few to basically the majority being omicron,” [Dr. Ben Pinsky, director of the clinical virology laboratory] said. “I think nearly all of the cases will be omicron soon.”
But…but…but…the masks and social distancing rules were supposed to stop the spread.
Remember when Florida’s Ron DeSantis was “surge shamed” this summer? Well, now that omicron is here, the Washington Post offers this: Thousands who ‘followed the rules’ are about to get covid. They shouldn’t be ashamed.
Kelly Michelson, an attending physician at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and director of the Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, often takes care of patients who get sick for reasons they theoretically could have prevented. “My place is to just see the patient and help the patient, and not make assumptions about why people make certain choices in their lives,” she says, which is helpful advice to anyone who might judge others who test positive for the coronavirus. Doing so would be “making an assumption about some things that we just don’t know,” she says.Feeling ashamed about getting covid-19 isn’t healthy or helpful, experts agree. Here are some tips on how to clamp down on those feelings.
Do you know who should be ashamed? Every “expert” and bureaucrat who ignored the assertions of reasonable scientists that lockdowns wouldn’t work, who promised people who got vaccinated that the surges would end, and who attacked the politicians in states who made different and more sensible choices.
Quite frankly, the numbers I will be interested in seeing are the death and hospitalization rates in the next 2 weeks to determine if it is as mild as projected.
A South African study suggests reduced risks of hospitalisation and severe disease in people infected with the Omicron coronavirus variant versus the Delta one, though the authors say some of that is likely due to high population immunity.
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