San Francisco County is home to the state's highest COVID-19 infection rate — but the good news is case numbers remain significantly down from the peak of the Omicron surge.
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San Francisco is currently averaging approximately 13 COVID cases per 100,000 people, more than double the statewide average, which stands at 5 per 100,000, as first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Cases in San Francisco aren't spiking as much as they are not falling as quickly as before, most likely due to both the city opening up and more tourists in town with many schools on spring break.
UCSF infectious disease expert Dr. Peter Chin-Hong said the BA.2 sub variant of Omicron is responsible for most of the current cases.
"Omicron is so transmissible that instead of seeing new variants, what you're seeing is just versions of Omicron that become more transmissible," he told KCBS Radio, adding that BA.2 is about 30% to 50% more transmissible than Omicron.
Despite a higher case rate relative to the rest of California, San Francisco’s numbers remain low, especially compared to the peak of last winter's surge. Crucially, very few of the cases have resulted in hospitalizations in the city, where about four in five people are fully vaccinated.
"There’s some really good data showing that overall your risk of being hospitalized in the Omicron era is much lower than that of previous variants, particularly if you've been vaccinated but even unvaccinated," Dr. Chin-Hong said.
Dr. Chin-Hong's colleague, UCSF epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford, has been monitoring what’s been happening with BA.2 in Europe and said the experience has varied in different countries.
"I find it very hard to read the tea leaves on this one. And for my money, I suspect that we’re not going to see any big national surge of BA.2," he told KCBS Radio. "I think we'll probably see it in certain areas that are under-vaccinated or over-exposed but I don’t really see it happening as a big national surge."
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