During this difficult time, UCSF is working closely with the San Francisco Mayor’s Office and San Francisco Department of Public Health as part of a coordinated public health response to serve the health care needs of our patients in San Francisco.
The number of cases of COVID-19 in San Francisco continues to rise, but at a slower rate than other areas of the country. We are cautiously hopeful that Mayor London Breed and Governor Gavin Newsom’s early and wise calls for sheltering in place and maintaining social distancing are helping to slow the growth in new infections.
UCSF epidemiologists forecast that the peak of cases in San Francisco may occur in the next month. We hope you are staying informed and protecting your health by practicing proper handwashing and social distancing guidelines.
For an overview of UCSF’s efforts and activities, please see below.
UCSF Health: In early March, to prepare for a possible surge of patients requiring hospitalization, we dramatically decreased the patient census at our adult and children’s hospitals, by cancelling all “elective” inpatient admissions and outpatient visits. In addition, we moved much of our patient care to telemedicine, with some clinics operating now at 100% telemedicine, compared to our previous activity of 5%. This week, we have managed to add back some surgeries to treat such cases as brain tumors requiring urgent resection.
To manage the influx of patients seeking evaluations for respiratory symptoms, we opened a telemedicine screening hotline that refers patients assessed as being at high risk for COVID-19 to appointment-only outpatient screening clinics on our Parnassus Heights and Mission Bay campuses. We also have appointment-only screening clinics for our employees, at our Laurel Heights (drive-through) and Mount Zion campuses.
We have taken a number of steps to prepare for a possible escalation in patient cases, including building temporary accelerated care units outside our Parnassus Heights and Mission Bay hospitals to triage and provide short-term treatment for patients who require care without hospitalization. We also have converted one of our hospital floors on Parnassus Heights campus into a respiratory containment unit and established a respiratory intensive care unit.
In addition, we are working with the City and other hospitals to expand care, both by establishing additional facilities for COVID-19 patient care and providing funding for these efforts:
UCSF Research: Our scientists are working around the clock to improve the efficiency and supply of tests, to sequence the genomes of the viruses infecting Bay Area patients to determine where the viral outbreaks in the Bay Area came from, and how quickly the disease is spreading, and are working to identify therapies to treat the disease, through basic and translational research and clinical trials.
Education: The crisis has affected not only UCSF Health and our patients but our academic programs, which include schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy and a graduate research division. We have moved all instruction to online learning. Our 3rd and 4th year students are still doing their clinical rotations, but they have pivoted from primarily education rotations to workforce support. Consistent with sheltering in place, we have closed all non-essential campus activity, including all research activity other than research that is COVID-19 related.
Mount Sutro: As a public health reminder, all San Francisco residents who are not conducting essential services have been asked to shelter in place (see Mayor’s statement), except when attending to essential needs or exercising near home. Per San Francisco’s social distancing guidelines, if you are driving or taking public transportation in pursuit of exercise, you are traveling too far. When walking Mount Sutro on our Parnassus Heights campus, please maintain a distance of six feet between yourself and others. This can be difficult while on a narrow trail, but doing so will support the health and safety of yourself and your neighbors.
COVID-19 Virtual Town Hall: On Thursday, April 16, from 5:00-6:00 p.m., UCSF is hosting a virtual town hall with UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood and Mark Laret, President & CEO, UCSF, to provide you with an update on COVID-19’s impact in San Francisco, UCSF’s response to the pandemic as a major health care provider for our community, and the impact of UCSF as one of the nation’s pre-eminent biomedical research institutions, and give you an opportunity to ask questions.
If you would like to learn more, please visit the following online resources:
Starbucks will be re-opening for MOBILE ORDERS ONLY starting on Thursday, 04/09. No customers will be allowed into the store and orders will be picked up at the front door.
The revised hours will be:
Mon-Fri: 6am – 4pm. Sat-Sun: 7am – 3pm.
Attached is a how-to flyer for those who may need guidance on how to download &/or use the Starbucks app.
As a reminder, when everyone is concerned with the spread of germs and viruses, please remember DO NOT FLUSH any type of wet wipes down the toilet. Even the wipes that are labeled “Safe To Flush” or “Flushable” can lead to toilet and pipe blockages causing water to overflow into residents units. Waste pipe clogs and the subsequent water damage it will cause can be very costly. Wet wipes, any kind, are generally made from non-woven fibrous materials. Wet wipes DO NOT break down in the waste pipes.
Please be sure to dispose of “Flushable” or “Non Flushable” wet wipes in your trash.
In the rapidly changing environment caused by COVID-19, the SFMTA is making additional updates to Muni service. While ridership has fallen significantly, our bus operators still serve approximately 100,000 passengers a day – getting nurses, cooks, custodians, and other essential workers to their jobs. The SFMTA has instituted some of the strongest health protections for our operators, mechanics, car cleaners and customers to minimize risk of transmission on our buses. These efforts have been paired with our continued effort to maintain regular service, so remaining essential workers have the space to maintain recommended distances on Muni. However, it has become increasingly difficult to continue delivering service on our current network due to operator availability and the changing trip needs of the community. Following public health guidance, there are operators are in self-quarantine out of an abundance of caution, while others have conditions that make them especially vulnerable. We are expecting over 40% of our operators to be out in the coming week. Remaining operators will continue to be on the job doing the heroic work of keeping San Francisco moving during this crisis. In order to maintain service levels to provide social distance, we must focus our available resources on the lines that most critically serve essential trips. This means temporarily reducing Muni service, and prioritizing routes in most critical need during the pandemic. Our priority is to be fully transparent with the community. Our goal is to restore normal service as quickly as possible. However, in the interim, we will prioritize our available resources based on connections to medical facilities, Muni’s Equity Strategy, and data from customer travel patterns we’ve observed during the COVID-19 shelter-in-place order. In order to maintain frequency, and sufficient social distance on these services, we will continue to operate 17 routes, while temporarily eliminating services on others. Changes to Muni service are being rolled out in phases
Monday, April 6
Customers should prepare for delays across the Muni system both Monday and Tuesday. We expect to be below necessary staffing levels to provide adequate service. This gap will cause missed runs and delays that may not be accurately reflected in NextBus predictions. If you need to make an essential trip, plan to use other options or allow extra time when riding Muni.
Tuesday, April 7
Service will be temporarily discontinued on seven
routes that are experiencing low ridership or have nearby lines that provide similar service and connections. Routes to be discontinued include the 2 Clement, 3 Jackson, 5 Fulton, 7 Haight, 10 Townsend, 21 Hayes and 31 Balboa.
Wednesday, April 8
Service will be further reduced to our 17 most-used lines. This core network will provide service within one mile of all San Franciscans. This approach allows Muni to continue to serve San Francisco’s medical facilities and focuses on equity to ensure service for our customers most reliant on transit. The frequency of buses will vary by line so that lines experiencing some crowding will have more frequent service than others.
The 17 core routes that will remain in service, with some modifications include:
N Judah Bus 22 Fillmore L Taraval Bus 24 Divisadero T Third Bus 25 Treasure Island 1 California 29 Sunset 8 Bayshore 38 Geary 9 San Bruno 38R Geary Rapid 14 Mission 44 O’Shaughnessy 14R Mission Rapid 49 Van Ness/Mission 19 Polk
More details on the exact service plan will be available soon, so stay tuned and thank you for your patience as we all get through this difficult time together.
How San Franciscans Can Help
We need San Franciscans to help us continue to minimize risk of COVID-19 transmission on Muni. Please remember to stay home except for essential trips that cannot be made any other way. Take alternative transportation to Muni if you can. Comply with the shelter-in-place directive. Make only essential trips Use Muni for essential trips only when other options are not available. By developing a plan to deliver core Muni service with the resources available, we can continue to minimize risks of transmission and ensure our transit system works for essential trips across San Francisco.
For more information on what we’re are doing and updates to SFMTA services, please visit SFMTA.com/COVID19. The COVID-19 Muni Core Service Plan.
We just received the following update from SFMTA regarding service changes effective on Monday, March 30th:
1. Subway service will be replaced with buses. 2. The following subway stations will be CLOSED: West Portal, Forest Hill, Castro, Church and Van Ness 3. Downtown stations (shared with BART) will be open during regular BART service hours BUT there will be no SFMTA light rail running (so theMUNI sections will be shut) 4. Bus shuttles will run on all Muni Metro lines. They will use the same stop locations as Early Morning Metro Bus Service. Locations are here: Early Morning Metro Bus Service. https://www.sfmta.com/getting-around/muni/routes-stops/muni-weekend-early-morning-metro-bus-service Shuttles will run at 10-12 minute frequency on weekdays; at 15-minutes on weekends 5. GPS arrival times will be available on Nextbus for: JBus, KTBus, LBus, MBus, and NBus 6. Rapid Routes are discontinued — please use local services instead. The 14R is the only exception to this.
Starting Saturday, April 4th:
1. Weekend 47 service will be suspended. (Use route 49 which will be extended to Fisherman’s Wharf on weekends)
As a reminder:
Mission Bay Shuttles continue to operate one bus on each route. There is ample room to maintain Social Distancing, so please don’t hesitate to use our service for essential trips between Mission Bay and transit hubs. Our schedules for this Essential Service are at: www.missionbaytma.org
Stay healthy and safe during this time which, challenging as it may be, is ultimately one of our best defenses to contain COVID-19.
