Stage 2 reopening: Some Bay Area counties could start implementing 'Phase 2' as early as next week, officials say

ByMelanie Woodrow KGO logo

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Some Bay Area counties could implement 'Phase 2' as early as next week, officials say

The ability for Bay Area cities and counties to move into "Phase2" of the stay-at-home order is dependent on their ability to meet six key indicators.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The ability for Bay Area cities and counties to move into "Phase 2" of the coronavirus stay-at-home order is dependent on their ability to meet six key indicators.

San Francisco's scorecard is looking good according to Mayor London Breed.

On the six indicators needed to move into the early stages of phase two, Mayor Breed says, "It's whether or not the number of cases is flat or decreasing and we see that they are at least remaining flat."

The mayor says hospitalizations are also flat and San Francisco's hospital capacity is stable.

"We want to be able to get to a place where we can at least test over 1,600 people a day in our city and the good news is we are almost there," said Mayor Breed.

Mayor Breed says the city also has a comprehensive contact tracing program and is also working to make sure it has sufficient PPE.

San Mateo County's health officer announced he will issue a new shelter-in-place order effective May 18, which would bring the county in line with early "Phase 2" guidelines.

The county cites encouraging updates in the data including stability in COVID-19 cases and hospital capacity.

Alameda County says based on the progress of its indicators and barring any big spikes in cases over the next few days, it anticipates moving into early "Phase 2" next week.

A county spokesperson tells ABC7 News, Alameda County's trend of new cases per day and epidemic curve has continued to decrease over the last two-plus weeks. Also that the trend for COVID-19 hospitalizations is flat with mild decreases over the last two and a half weeks. The county says it has sufficient bed capacity to handle a surge of cases.

"At this time, we have sufficient bed capacity across Alameda County hospitals and COVID-19 patients are only occupying less than 6% of our hospital beds, and about 15% of ICU beds in Alameda County," wrote a county spokesperson to ABC7 News.

The county is also monitoring it's testing capacity goals, contact tracing, and PPE availability.

Here's more from the Alameda County spokesperson's statement:

"We are aiming for 3,100 tests per day. While we're bringing on more sites, our current capacity is at least 1000/day. We've had more than 33,000 tests in Alameda County to date and we have more than 30 testing sites in the county. At this time we estimate we are meeting our goals of reaching 90% of cases and contacts and ensuring that 90% of those we reach can isolate or quarantine safely. We need to continue to scale our teams up to prepare for increased cases and outbreaks as we loosen restrictions and allow more physical contact. These efforts, combined with our other disease containment activities have mean our progress is trending toward positive. We want to have at least a 30-day supply of personal protective equipment on hand for all health care workers. We are still working with our health care facilities to refine our process to receive attestations that hospitals have a 30 day supply of PPE on hand. The County is still receiving some requests for PPE and are working on a clear & consistent data stream to report on this indicator. This indicator moves toward the positive when there is a two-week reduction in PPE requests made through the County Emergency Operations Center, but we are not there yet."

Marin County says of the six criteria, it's accomplished three; COVID-19 cases are stable or declining, medical facilities are able to handle a surge and a dashboard is in place to establish a real-time monitoring system.

The thee criteria still in progress in Marin County are COVID-19 testing capacity, contact tracing, and capacity to practice COVID-19 safety in all sectors.

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