SF Announces New Order Requiring Hospitals to Show They're Providing Timely COVID Testing

As San Francisco continues to upwind a surge of COVID-19 cases successful caller weeks, Mayor London Breed connected Tuesday announced a caller bid that volition necessitate hospitals and ample wellness attraction systems to beryllium to the metropolis that they are gathering diligent investigating needs successful a timely manner.

The caller mayoral order, which takes effect Wednesday, requires the wellness systems to supply documentation doubly a week showing they are pursuing a metropolis bid from August 2021 by providing investigating for patients successful their attraction with symptoms oregon radical who person been a adjacent interaction to a affirmative trial wrong 24 hours of a request.

If they bash not, the hospitals and wellness systems could look fines of up to $10,000 per day.

"To conscionable existent demand, we request much from our backstage wellness attraction partners," Breed said astatine a briefing Tuesday with different metropolis officials.

Dr. Grant Colfax, manager of the city's Department of Public Health, said the metropolis is seeing an unprecedented fig of COVID-19 cases and accrued request for investigating acknowledgment to the caller omicron variant that has proved much contagious than erstwhile variants of the virus.

One successful 5 tests administered successful the metropolis close present are coming backmost positive, Colfax said. He noted hospitalization numbers person not climbed rather arsenic drastically due to the fact that of the precocious vaccination complaint successful the metropolis and said the "vast majority" of those hospitalized are unvaccinated oregon person not gotten their booster shot.

"We are successful the mediate of the worst of this omicron surge," helium said, but added that "we person crushed to believe, based connected information from different parts of the world, that we could beryllium turning a country soon."

City officials connected Tuesday besides said they are providing much enactment to San Francisco Unified School District, which has faced staffing shortages coming retired of its wintertime interruption owed to teachers and different employees being sick.

The metropolis volition supply 500,000 surgical masks for students, 150,000 KN95 masks for unit and 1,000 accelerated tests for educators to usage aft they quarantine and earlier they instrumentality to the classroom.

SFUSD Superintendent Vincent Matthews said that by the extremity of this week, each pupil and teacher successful a territory schoolroom volition person a take-home COVID test. Breed and different metropolis officials said they don't program immoderate further restrictions for residents for the clip being, and said a main precedence is to support schools unfastened successful San Francisco.

More accusation astir investigating successful the schoolhouse territory tin beryllium recovered astatine https://www.sfusd.edu/covid-19-response-updates-and-resources/covid-19-surveillance-testing-students/covid-19-testing-locations-and-dates.