As Coronavirus Spreads, 6 San Francisco-Area Counties Ordered To Shelter In Place

Six counties in the San Francisco Bay Area will be placed under a shelter-in-place directive by public health officials in a bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus, a move that will close virtually all businesses and direct residents to remain at home for the next three weeks. Los Angeles Times reports: San Mateo Mayor Joe Goethals said he believed that the order, announced in a pair of news conferences Monday afternoon, put the six counties -- San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda -- on perhaps the most restrictive public health footing anywhere in the U.S. since the outbreak of the potentially deadly coronavirus. San Francisco Mayor London Breed said that, effective at midnight, city residents would be required to stay at home "except for essential needs" and that all but essential businesses and public services would be asked to closed, starting at midnight Monday. The order will remain in place through April 7.

Only police and fire departments, hospitals, grocery stores, gas stations, banks and pharmacies and restaurants serving take-out and delivery customers will be allowed to remain open under the shelter-in-place order, officials said. Residents will be able to go to grocery stores and other essential services, but Goethals urged residents not to rush, adding that stores will remain fully stocked. The San Francisco Bay Area is the region hit hardest by coronavirus in the state. More than 250 cases have been reported in the six Bay Area counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara, with more than 100 in Santa Clara County. San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott says violation of the health order could be enforceable as a misdemeanor, however "that is an absolute last resort," Scott said. "This is not about a criminal justice approach to a public health issue. We are asking for voluntarily compliance."

UPDATE: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has ordered statewide cancelations of events with 25+ people. All Oregon restaurants and bars are restricted to carry-out only. Anyone who doesn't comply will be subject to a Class C misdemeanor.

Wait

[enigma32]

Wait I don't understand...
If all businesses other than those listed will be closed, how will the grocery stores keep everything in-stock?

Re:

[Snake98]

This is a panic, not a pandemic. Through your so called logic out the door!!

Re:

[MightyMartian]

I love how the basement dwellers are all determined to call this a panic. What are you worried about? It's not like COVID-19 can be spread through WoW.

Re:

[k6mfw]

uhmm, there ain't no basements in California.

Re:

[sacdelta]

They are referring to businesses open to the public. Truck drivers, food production, utilities, etc will remain operational, but they are not "open".

Re:

[Darinbob]

Also, in most counties I believe you can have minimum essential services; such as having security guards to watch the place, someone to feed the animals in your pet store, etc.

There are tons of exceptions. But for where you need to do something that you can't justify as an exception, the enforcement will be minimal. No one's going to jail for this unless you're a real asshat. It's not martial law.

It's going to hurt some businesses that don't fit into the exceptions. Hopefully insurance can kick in. (note

Re:

[lgw]

If all businesses other than those listed will be closed, how will the grocery stores keep everything in-stock?

There currently 520 active cases [arcgis.com] of the Corona virus in California. It's a big state. So the important thing is to panic, and cause far more harm than the virus itself, lest a politician not be seen as "doing something".

It's early days in the US, too early for people to start using up their food stores, and too early to take away the paychecks of hourly employees who don't have much savings. The Corona virus will be a serious problem for at least a couple months to come. Best to take rational measures,

Re:

[shess]

If all businesses other than those listed will be closed, how will the grocery stores keep everything in-stock?

There currently 520 active cases [arcgis.com] of the Corona virus in California. It's a big state. So the important thing is to panic, and cause far more harm than the virus itself, lest a politician not be seen as "doing something".

Fortunately, if you aren't able to see something happening, it's not happening. Imagine if we had tested 90% fewer people and only saw like 90 active cases! Things would be so much better!

Unfortunately, the entire US has done just over ten thousand tests, and has a bit under 5,000 confirmed cases. South Korea has done 30x as many tests as the US, in a population less than 1/6 the size of the US. One has to hope that if we did 300 thousand tests, we wouldn't find a 3-to-1 ratio of cases, which would be o

Re:Wait

[BitterOak]

But, yeah, definitely no reason to panic, problem is solved.

That's a very good point: if the problem isn't solved, the best thing we can do is panic.

Re:

[swillden]

But, yeah, definitely no reason to panic, problem is solved.

That's a very good point: if the problem isn't solved, the best thing we can do is panic.

What does "panic" mean here?

The implication of thread is that the "shelter in place" order constitutes "panic"... but extreme social distancing actually will solve the problem. China has stopped SARS-CoV-2 in its tracks. At enormous cost, yes, but since they're down to about 20 new cases per day, in a week or so they'll be down to only a few hundred active cases. At that point they can loosen most of the restrictions, keeping in place mild restrictions that will hold the growth rate down and ramping up

Re:

[Uberbah]

That's a very good point: if the problem isn't solved, the best thing we can do is panic.

If you want to go on being a wanker and describing reasonable precautions as "panic", sure.

Re:

[batkiwi]

One local free clinic here in canberra, australia (population 400,000) has tested over 1000 people already.

All of the US has really only tested 10x that?

Re:

[iikkakeranen]

It's not quite that low but official CDC testing has been incredibly slow, and states were not allowed to do their own testing until very recently. See the graph here [cdc.gov]. The current count is 4255 tests by CDC and 20K tests by states (mostly in the last week).

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile in the UK ~44000 tests found ~2000 positives. So 3:1 does look bad.

Re:

[Dunbal]

The ratio doesn't mean anything other than US doctors are possibly more accurate in diagnosing it and sending samples for testing whereas in the UK the threshold for suspicion is lower and lots of of negatives are being sent for testing...

Re:

[halaloszt0]

No, it is the opposite: People can be infected with no symptoms and spreading the virus. To find and isolate them, you must test people with no symptoms at all. This results in lower rates among the ones tested, but helps slowing down the spread of the disease. If you spare with tests and only tests ppl. with fewer, pain, etc., you will get higer positive rate, but you have no chance finding the ones spreading the virus. And you get in huge trouble in a week. I am from Europe, and see this happening. Ita

Re:

[anoncoward69]

Testing doesn't do shit with a virus spreading as rapidly as this one. You could get tested catch it 10 minutes later and go on your merry way infecting everyone you encounter with your false sense of security. Unless they are going to mandate DAILY testing of everyone, you might as well not even bother with the testing. The only way testing will have any benefit is if you can make a test that people can perform themselves at home and get the results at home within minutes/hours. Create such a test, ship e

Re:

[aaarrrgggh]

I am pretty sure your 10,000 tests is a week out of date. Still shameful, but not that bad. Actual numbers seem to be around 4,000 per day and ramping up dramatically. Still zero sense of the level of community spread though, anywhere really.

Yes, South Korea is doing it right; today there is no way other than just being paranoid to know if you should stay put if you have flown somewhere or done anything mildly risky. There is also almost no way to know when you can come out of hiding, or at least plan for

Re:Wait

[DRJlaw]

There currently 520 active cases [arcgis.com] of the Corona virus in California.

Those are the cases confirmed by CDC-led testing. The same CDC-led testing that's been criticized for the last two weeks as being generally unavailable and totally insufficient [paloaltoonline.com].

But don't worry, if someone is ill and you haven't tested them for SARS-CoV-2, the can't have it, so there's only 520 active cases.

Re:Wait

[hax 109]

That's how many confirmed cases France had 10 days ago and Italy 16 days ago. France and Italy test more, so the lag is probably smaller than it looks. France is on lockdown since today, Italy since last Monday. If the San Franscisco lockdown is early, it's only by a few days. Italy's was too late to keep the medical system from becoming overwhelmed, France's is probably going to turn out a little late too.

Re:

[phantomfive]

The French were very cavalier about the whole thing, gathering together and dressing up as smurfs for giant festivals [slate.com]. They generally said, "it's just the flu" and partied like normal, even after the government tried to start shutting things down.

In comparison, Stanford already shut down the campus already, a lot of companies have been WFH all last week, and large gatherings have been banned for a while.

Furthermore, people have been taking it seriously. Buses have been almost empty for two weeks, and t

Re:

[bluegutang]

In other words, it looks like San Francisco locked down at exactly the right time to avoid a medical meltdown?

Re:

[dgatwood]

You simply can't keep people at home for more than a month or so. This problem will last for a month after it blows up and becomes widespread in any given area. Therefore, it's not a win to be early, it's causing real harm a month from now. People who lock themselves inside now will likely run out of food just as the pandemic hits its peak in the US.

This. This is what I've been saying for a while. Unfortunately, between the massively delayed and woefully inadequate CDC testing under our corrupt failure of

Re:

[ShoulderOfOrion]

You must have missed the last Tech Titan Airways corporate jet flight direct San Jose to New Zealand.

Re:Wait

[Mark of the North]

My guess is that you have no university-level epidemiology on your transcripts.

Keeping people at home now will delay the spread of the virus and give the healthcare system, among other systems, time to prepare. It is also much more effective to shut non-essentials down while the number of contagious individuals walking around is low. Keeping people home now, while the virus is still relatively rare in the population will keep the numbers low. Waiting until the virus is common before shutting everything down will have much less impact.

This is painfully clear in Italy and will be obvious in the US within a week.

Re:

[aaarrrgggh]

Italy is one extreme for sure, but the problem is that it isn’t just an epidemiological issue. The second and third order implications are huge, and without a balanced holistic solution you end up just saving the patient at the cost of everything else.

I count myself lucky; I am back home after a 2-month trip, I got everything done that I intended to, and the CDC considers me to be a low-risk individual. But, if the return flight was delayed a week I would have gotten home with an empty fridge and ge

Re:

[lgw]

t is also much more effective to shut non-essentials down while the number of contagious individuals walking around is low.

So, to you, the grocery store is non-essential? This is the whole point. If you pull the trigger too early, you're screwed.

We're not talking about non-essentials here. Schools and public gatherings and such are already closed, and people are already working from home where they can. That's the right measure early in the game.

They're not panicking

[rsilvergun]

they're trying to slow the spread of the virus because our healthcare system is woefully unprepared to handle a pandemic. We've been cutting pay & staffing for 30 years to boost profits. Meaning there's not enough capacity for all the folk who would need care if we just let the virus run it's course. It needs to be slowed down.

Re:

[Retired ICS]

I don't think any Health care system can handle a pandemic. They are designed to handle local infections only. How would you propose that all the people affected by this particular Coronavirus get treatment in the US? A thought the first thing you do was prohibit imports for areas where this was epidemic? So how can you claim to have anything whatsoever to do with "treating the pandemic"?

In other words, your local health care system does not have to deal with a pandemic, which is merely nothing more tha

Re:

[Uberbah]

So how can you claim to have anything whatsoever to do with "treating the pandemic"?

Orders of magnitude. There are less than 100,000 ventilators in all of the United States. What if deficit peacocks like Susan Collins hadn't stripped $870 million [newsweek.com] in disease funding from the budget and we had a million ventilators instead. Testing facilities that could have been ramped up weeks ago to track those infected. And whatever hazmat uniforms doctors and nurses would need to work with stricken patients without catch

Re:

[Comrade Ogilvy]

It's early days in the US, too early for people to start using up their food stores, and too early to take away the paychecks of hourly employees who don't have much savings. The Corona virus will be a serious problem for at least a couple months to come. Best to take rational measures, and save the "quarantine everybody" hammer for later.

If we can stop it in its tracks early, the savings to the economy will be enormous. This virus, if allowed to run rampant, could easily kill 3-6 million US citizens. In terms of the cost of human lives, that would be tens of thousands of preventable deaths per day, running for months. That is a 9/11 attack several times per day.

I do not see how waiting helps us. It is not inevitable that the US will be massively reinfected in three or four months time, as we can hope to have effective screening of trave

Re:

[Retired ICS]

The number of infections and the death rate is unchanged. You will note that what is being practiced is "flattening the curve". The "area under the curve" remains constant.

The basic idea is to spread out the 6 million deaths over a period of many months so that they do not exceed the capacity of the healthcare system or the grave-diggers.

If the goal were to prevent death then it would not be called "flattening the curve", it would be called "reducing the area under the curve".

If the curve was not flattene

Re:

[Dunbal]

do not exceed the capacity of the healthcare system or the grave-diggers.

Obligatory [youtube.com]

Re:

[omnichad]

If the goal were to prevent death then it would not be called "flattening the curve", it would be called "reducing the area under the curve".

Someone hasn't been following along. The area under the curve is who gets infected. The survival rates depend VERY much on how flat that curve is. So many people require ventilators, blood oxygenators, and so on to survive this illness. So many, that already in Washington state, people are dying due to lack of resources - who could have otherwise survived the disease.

The mortality rate is at least 10x higher if the resources are unavailable - we're talking about lungs that are practically not working un

Re:

[Comrade Ogilvy]

The basic idea is to spread out the 6 million deaths over a period of many months so that they do not exceed the capacity of the healthcare system or the grave-diggers.

If the healthcare system is not overwhelmed, the mortality rates drop. If completely swamped the mortality rate could easily be double or triple what the minimum level would be.

You are fundamentally misunderstanding the argument for flattening the curve, and handwaving away the death of several million Americans as too theoretical to worry over.

Re:

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Assuming suppression fails, we must initiate aggressive mitigation, where communities try to lessen the impact of the disease. The crucial statistic from China is that the case fatality rate inside Wuhan is 5.8 percent but only 0.7 percent in other areas in China, an eightfold difference — explained by an overwhelmed health care system. That illustrates why flattening the curve matters; lessening stress on the health care system, especially the availability of intensive care beds, saves lives.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0... [nytimes.com]

Re:

[lgw]

If we can stop it in its tracks early

We cant. Everyone gets the virus (well, 70%+). There's no other scenario here. The virus will run rampant. It's a done deal.

The rational discussion is about spreading out the infection rate over more weeks so that the fixed number of ventilators saves the most people. But you don't want to pull the trigger on lockdown until the virus becomes common. Let people keep topping off their food stores until you have to lock it down, because you can only keep that up for a month or so.

Re:

[Uberbah]

But you don't want to pull the trigger on lockdown until the virus becomes common.

When it's common, then you're past the point of having a lockdown for most of the population. Canceling events, schools and staying home now will make it much easier to deal with the virus in the months to come.

Re:

[lgw]

Do you understand the difference between canceling schools and shows, and an actual lockdown? The difference is: you can't buy food. DO you see why that difference matters?

Re:

[WaffleMonster]

It's early days in the US, too early for people to start using up their food stores, and too early to take away the paychecks of hourly employees who don't have much savings. The Corona virus will be a serious problem for at least a couple months to come. Best to take rational measures, and save the "quarantine everybody" hammer for later.

You simply can't keep people at home for more than a month or so. This problem will last for a month after it blows up and becomes widespread in any given area. Therefore, it's not a win to be early, it's causing real harm a month from now. People who lock themselves inside now will likely run out of food just as the pandemic hits its peak in the US.

Nobody is going to starve. They are not shutting down everything including local supermarkets.

Re:

[lgw]

If you're not allowed to leave your home, it doesn't matter what businesses are open.

Re:

[WaffleMonster]

If you're not allowed to leave your home, it doesn't matter what businesses are open.

People are being allowed to leave. The terminology they are using to describe this is stupid.

Re:

[swillden]

If all businesses other than those listed will be closed, how will the grocery stores keep everything in-stock?

There currently 520 active cases [arcgis.com] of the Corona virus in California. It's a big state. So the important thing is to panic, and cause far more harm than the virus itself, lest a politician not be seen as "doing something".

You fail at math.

520 active cases. What's the growth rate? I encourage you to look up the numbers and do the calculation yourself, but assuming it tracks with the rest of the US, it's about 1.38 -- that's the daily growth rate, mind you.

Now, extrapolate that out a bit:

now + 1: 520 * 1.38^1 = 717
now + 2: 520 * 1.38^2 = 990
now + 7: 520 * 1.38^7 = 4,956
now + 14: 520 * 1.38^14 = 47,420
now + 21: 450,261
now + 28: 4,291,585
now + 35: 40,904,525

So, in just over one month at current growth rate, half of

Re:

[thegarbz]

If all businesses other than those listed will be closed, how will the grocery stores keep everything in-stock?

Delivery companies and farms, or factories or warehouses aren't businesses facing customers or serving crowds. Those thinking among us would quickly note that he is closing shops and storefronts.

Re:

[enigma32]

Those thinking among us would quickly note that he is closing shops and storefronts.

Maybe he should say what he means, if that's the case?

Grocery stores Fully stocked

[cygnusvis]

Truck drivers must be going to work too then.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, but they're not picking up hookers. Won't someone think of the lot lizards?

This must be great for camgirls, though.

Re:

[Darinbob]

To be honest, I read a story earlier about how sex workers in the Seattle area were having financial difficulties.

Ordinary people must safer...

[Nova Express]

...but I'm sure that drug addicted transients will be allowed to continue shitting in the streets [battleswarmblog.com].

How's that one-party Democratic state working out for you, California?

So basically

[93 Escort Wagon]

The significant difference between this and what several other states and citys are doing is this a mandatory work from home order. You can still go shopping at the grocery store, and you can still even buy fast food.

However I do wonder how many people will see the headline, read no further and immediately swarm the grocery store "before they close it".

Re:So basically

[BeerFartMoron]

Heck, you can still pick up the dry cleaning ("Laundromats, dry cleaners, and laundry service providers") and go to the park for an evening stroll ("To engage in outdoor activity, provided the individuals comply with Social Distancing Requirements as defined in this Section, such as, by way of example and without limitation, walking, hiking, or running.") as long as you practice proper social distancing. Anyone panicking has not read the order, so I figure that'll be just about everyone in the bay area.

Re:

[swillden]

Heck, you can still pick up the dry cleaning ("Laundromats, dry cleaners, and laundry service providers") and go to the park for an evening stroll

Note, however, that if you go to the park you should keep your kids off of the playground equipment. SARS-CoV-2 can survive for days on plastic and metal.

Re:

[OrangeTide]

However I do wonder how many people will see the headline, read no further and immediately swarm the grocery store "before they close it".

The grocery stores in the Bay Area have been packed every day for the past week. Costco was, at its worst, a 1 hour wait to enter the parking lock. Right now it takes about 30 minutes just to get through the checkout at Safeway or Lucky's. And random things are sold out. At my store the oranges were being restocked every day (according to staff) and by noon were almost gone. Gluten-free bread was sold out too, probably more to do with it being obscure and not being restocked regularly than any particular ru

Re:

[hankwang]

People are preparing to stay home for weeks. And that seems like a perfectly reasonable assumption right now.

Not sure whether that's reasonable. In countries that have various degrees of lockdown here in Europe, you're still allowed to go out and buy groceries or work in the food supply chain as long as you're healthy. Often you're allowed to go to work as well, if your job isn't suitable for working from home. (And if you're home bound due to sickness, arrangements can be made.) We'll see whether such measures are enough to happy the spread of Covid-19.

Re:

[OrangeTide]

In the US we're not sure if infrastructure will run unless someone is profiting. The government avoids stepping in to take over stuff. California ends up with multiday power shut off on windy days because the power company is free to run their private business.

Re:

[Darinbob]

Over-buying oranges is dumb (good for orange growers like some of my relatives though). They'll go bad before people eat them. Same with buying all the bread you can fit in a cart. I wonder if these are gen z people with no concept of how food is supposed to work when it's not delivered by an uber driver?

Re:

[sodul]

Orange flavored bread pudding? Throw some chocolate chips in there and this sounds yummy.

Re:

[anoncoward69]

This is why you put your bread in the freezer, it will keep for some time frozen, every time you finish off a loaf, pull another from the freezer. No it might not be as soft as fresh bread, but it will still be edible mold free bread.

Re:

[anoncoward69]

Wallmart should have kept their 24 hour stores in more populous areas. This allows the number of people that visit the store to spread out over time. People very concerned about catching it can go shopping at 3-4am. Now with limited hours you likely have everyone jamming in to the store as soon as it opens to get what they can before it sells out, ensuring that the virus spreads among everyone waiting outside for it to open, wandering about the aisles and then in line again at checkout.

Re:

[phantomfive]

However I do wonder how many people will see the headline, read no further and immediately swarm the grocery store "before they close it".

It was unusually crowded in the grocery store today. I can't say it was because of people who read the headline, but who knows.

Re:

[b5anon]

They did that last weekend already.

Re: So basically

[aRTeeNLCH]

A word from Switzerland, the closing of schools and such was announced here last Friday, in the evening shops were quite empty of specific items. But on Saturday morning, everything had been replenished, plenty of fresh vegetables from Italy.

I take that to mean that the official messages there won't be any shortages are quite right. Even so, on Monday there was no toilet paper at the same supermarket...

Re:

[k6mfw]

Exactly. It doesn't help when some news headline writers use "Lockdown" (better click-bait) than "shelter in place."

The backlash on this should be interesting

[leonbev]

If history has taught us anything, it's that people don't like it when the Government tells them that they can't drink at their favorite watering hole.

I would expect that we'll be hearing our first stories about speakeasies opening up wherever bars are shut down about a week from now.

WTH??

[yodleboy]

Nearly 9 million people in the NYC area and 460 infections with 5 deaths. In a city of millions packed tight. Japanese cities with some of the highest population density in the world are hardly impacted.
 
Tell me again why we need to collectively lose our shit? Oh yeah because sites like CNN, FOX, etc. have been doing their best to keep up the fear mongering. Some people really do just want to watch the world burn.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

I've seen them do it. They have been talking for weeks now about how it's no big deal.

Re:

[phantomfive]

New York and San Francisco both have a higher population density than Tokyo.

Santa Clara County official FAQ

[rtfa0987]

FAQ makes sense, is clear and well-done: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/p... [sccgov.org]

The current situation with the coronavirus has com

[kleverok mari]

The current situation with the coronavirus has come as a shock to many. But you don't have to lose your head. Everything will get better and we will need to feed our families and keep working. We need to pay for utilities. pay for insurance contracts, taxes. You can also contact the debit relief centre https://debtquest.com/services... [debtquest.com] for a credit advice