The three-week “Stay at Home” order that was triggered for the Bay Area on December 18 after ICU capacity for the region fell below 15% was originally supposed to be revisited starting January 8th, but there has been no official word from the State of California.

A region is supposed to be able to exit the stay at home order when a 4-week projection is above or equal to 15%. To our knowledge, the state has not shared any of these projections, or exact methodology as to how these projections are made.

The city of San Francisco proactively extended their order “indefinitely” on December 31st, but we’re not aware of any other county making any official statement on the original deadline of January 8th.

Number of ICU Beds Currently “Available” in Bay Area
as of 1/6/21 – see data source

• Bay Area Total – 267 (lowest number since at least March)
• Alameda – 69
• Contra Costa – 27
• Marin – 14
• Monterey – 33
• Napa – 3
• San Francisco – 46
• San Mateo – 12
• Santa Clara – 27
• Santa Cruz – 4
• Solano – 8
• Sonoma – 24

Why a Drop in Available ICU Beds Doesn’t Always Mean More Hospitalizations
In general, it’s safe to assume that a drop in available ICU beds correlates with more more ICU beds being occupied, but not always. Please note that maximum number of potential ICU beds on a per region or county basis is not shared by the state of California and that potential ICU bed numbers can change depending on staffing and the ability to convert “normal” beds into ICU beds which is a common practice when overflow is needed. So without the state providing more detailed statistics and data on what it considers an “available” bed to be, in some cases it’s unclear if a drop in the number ICU beds available is the result of more hospitalizations, temporary ICU beds being converted back into regular beds and taken “offline,” or a combination of both.

In addition the Bay Area has 375 potential hospital beds not included in the above numbers that are considered “warm” and ready to be activated quickly in case of an emergency surge (125 in San Francisco in The Presidio and 250 in Richmond at the Craneway Pavilion)

When is a Regional “Stay at Home” Order Supposed to End?
Here’s what the state of California says

Delivery of shiny new “Fleet of the Future” trains on hold for at least 12 weeks while BART works out software & wheel issues.

Thanks to the Mercury News for letting us know that BART has paused their delivery of new “Fleet of the Future” trains due to software glitches and reliability issues putting it’s $2.6 billion effort to swap out a decades-old fleet of trains on hold.

Thanks to glitches in the on-board automatic train control system, the “new” cars routinely stop while in service and can’t move again until the train operator reboots the systems. This results in a 5-10 minute delay.

As of January 8, 2021, BART is expected to have 290 “Fleet of the Future” trains in service and 618 “legacy” cars.

Additionally, in wet weather the train’s wheels can develop “flat” spots when stopping, so the cars need to be removed from service so that the wheels can be resurfaced.

The pause in delivery of new trains will begin on January 8 and is expected to last at least 12 weeks.

This doesn’t appear to have any impact on the number of trains in service, only that older “legacy” cars will be decommissioned at a slower rate.

BART will temporarily stop accepting new cars

Read more at BART

BART will temporarily stop accepting delivery of new Fleet of the Future (FOTF) rail cars beginning January 8, 2021 to allow the manufacturer, Bombardier Transportation, the time to take steps to improve the cars’ reliability and availability, and to alleviate rail car storage constraints at BART’s maintenance yards.

One of the issues to be resolved is related to software in the on-board automatic train control system. The new cars routinely stop while in service and will not move until after the Train Operator reboots the system, resulting in a five-to-ten-minute delay.

In addition, when trains are stopping under wet or rainy conditions, the cars’ wheels can develop flat spots. When this occurs, the cars need to be removed from service so that the wheels can be resurfaced.

While neither issue impacts the safety of existing FOTF cars currently in service, they can impact service reliability and car availability.

BART is expected to have 290 FOTF cars by January 8th and, combined with 618 legacy cars, BART will be required to retire legacy cars to create room for additional FOTF cars. Given the pause in delivery of new