San Francisco Mayor London Breed has announced that the US city will adjust the reopening of its businesses and other activities over the continued increase in Covid-19 cases due to which it has been placed in the more restrictive ‘Red Tier’.
San Francisco will temporarily roll back the reopening of all non-essential offices and will reduce the capacity of fitness centers and gyms to a maximum capacity of 10 per cent, Xinhua news agency quoted the Mayor as saying in an announcement on Monday.
These changes will come into effect on Tuesday.
San Francisco is rolling back these activities in compliance with California’s Blueprint for Safer Economy tier assignments, according to Breed’s announcement.
San Francisco, the Bay Area, and California are continuing to experience a rapid and significant increase in Covid-19 cases.
To adapt to the widespread rise in cases, the state has notified the counties that it is changing its reopening tier assignments.
On Monday, 41 of the 58 counties were assigned to the most restrictive ‘Purple Tier’, which prohibits many businesses and activities.
The state has assigned San Francisco from the least restrictive ‘Yellow Tier’, where virus transmission is minimal, to the more restrictive ‘Red Tier’, where the spread is substantial.
“The increased rate of new Covid-19 cases in San Francisco means that we need to make some additional adjustments to slow the spread of the virus in our community,” said Breed.
“In addition to these rollbacks, we need everyone to do their part to get Covid-19 under control to all stay home as much as possible, avoid unnecessary travel, and avoid gathering with people who don’t live with us.
“It’s an important step we can each take to stay safe and protect the health of our entire community,” she added.
San Francisco is currently experiencing a surge in new case rates.
One of the key indicators of Covid-19 prevalence in the city, the number of new cases per day per 100,000 people, continues to climb from a low of 3.7 cases per 100,000 people to more than 10 cases per 100,000 people this week.
From October 10 to November 10, single-day cases jumped from a 7-day average of 29 cases per day to 97 cases per day.
The San Francisco County currently accounts for 13,760 cases with 16 deaths.
California’s overall caseload and death toll stand at over 1,400,000 and 18,277, respectively.
