5 ms·

While the sensationalist headline is technically accurate, both the headline and the linked article bury the intent and context of the declaration. In short, do

While the sensationalist headline is technically accurate, both the headline and the linked article bury the intent and context of the declaration. In short, don't panic. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-mayor-London-Breed-declares-state-of-emergency-15083811.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-mayor-London-... > There have been no confirmed coronavirus cases in San Francisco to date, but as infections continue to rise across the world, “we need to allocate more resources to make sure we are prepared,” Breed said at a press conference announcing the emergency declaration. > “To be clear, this declaration of emergency is all about preparedness. By declaring a state of emergency we are prioritizing the safety of our communities by being prepared.”

jiveturkey 7y ago
well, it is BI. that's what they do.
dekhn 7y ago
There have been confirmed coronavirus cases in SF, as a number of sick patients are/were being treated at hospitals in the city (I know, because my alma mater, UCSF, sent out a big press release about it). They probably mean nobody has been reported to be infected while in SF. That's probably also not true.
- fluxsauce 7y ago
  Can you link to the press release in question? Thanks!
  - mikeyouse 7y ago
    Not the press release, but here's UCSF's Coronavirus info page where they state that there were two patients from a different California county with confirmed Coronavirus who were treated and released at UCSF Parnassus (the main campus on the hill near Cole Valley): https://www.ucsf.edu/coronavirus#cases https://www.ucsf.edu/coronavirus#cases
  - dekhn 7y ago
    Hmm, I guess it was a 'statement', not a PR. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/U-S-officials-take-aggressive-measures-to-15027383.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/U-S-officials-ta... """ix people have tested positive for the new coronavirus in California — two in Southern California and the four people now in the Bay Area. The San Benito County patients, who are both 57, were at home until early Monday, when they were taken by ambulance to UCSF after their symptoms suddenly worsened. They are being cared for in isolation at the hospital. In a statement, UCSF said that it “specializes in the care of patients with complex illnesses, including infectious diseases like the novel coronavirus.” Doctors there “also treated patients during past epidemics, such as SARS in 2003.”""" (of all the places in the US you'd want to treat patients while studying them, UCSF is one of the top ones. They really are experts in infectious diseases).
d1zzy 7y ago
I'm curious how this "state of emergency" declaration works when everyone is doing it. AFAIK a lot of "state of emergency" declarations are about fund allocations from central sources (state, federal) and that works fine when it's used for exceptional cases/natural disasters but I doubt this will scale well when the entire country enters a state of emergency. I guess we shall see.
- dahfizz 7y ago
  Maybe that's why SF is declaring emergency so early
- rolph 7y ago
  its not just fund allocations but there is a change in operational stance for local governments and service providers its a different machine state than default mode if theres not enough money around the emergency rules will still be in effect
- Retric 7y ago
  Local governments in disaster prone areas tend to have significant emergency funds they can tap into. Doing so now to do an inventory of supplies, run some disaster planning, and possibly fill in any gaps is completely reasonable. They are unusually likely to see a small scale outbreak and effective early responses could make a huge difference.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    Most importantly this allows using the emergency funds to boost local healthcare in case of an epidemic. Without the declaration the local government is unable to do so, just use it to bolster standard plans.
koheripbal 7y ago
I feel like the debate between the "don't panic" crowd and the "preppers" is a useless semantic debate between extremists. You want to react the appropriate amount. For the time being, you should go about your normal routine, but like the CDC said today, you should prepare for some major lifestyle disruptions.
- robben1234 7y ago
  Our world is filled with viruses, and we have set measures to fight it. I'm afraid Covid2019 might became a reason for another Patriot act, seizing people's rights and freedoms even more.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- irq11 7y ago
  Sure, but “don’t panic” is not an extreme sentiment, nor does it imply you shouldn’t prepare. Panic over an illness that has infected a grand total of less than 100,000 people...out of 7 billion, is probably an overreaction, in almost every case. The amount of absolute garbage information flooding the internet right now has caused a lot of folks I know to freak out, when the relative risk of this virus is lower than any number of other things they do on a daily basis without a second thought. So yes, wash your hands more, try to avoid large crowds amd have a plan for when they cancel your kid’s school or whatever, but don’t start a run on canned goods at the local grocery store. It’s important to maintain perspective.
  - hartator 7y ago
    How is avoid large crowd advice have more perspective than buy can food?
    - irq11 7y ago
      Your choice to avoid crowds helps everyone, because the crowds are one person smaller. Hoarding canned food from your local store hurts everyone, because now they have less food.
ars 7y ago
> To be clear, this declaration of emergency is all about preparedness. Is it me, or does this completely abuse the meaning of "state of emergency"?
- dahfizz 7y ago
  Just like the freedom act, many things in politics are named for popularity and not clarity. "Declaring a State of emergency" sounds better than "begging for more federal money"
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  It's not unusual to declare a state of emergency before a big snow storm, or a hurricane. Sometimes they blow through without much impact, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
  - ars 7y ago
    A state of emergency grants the government some powerful things. It should not be abused. If you are declaring it for a hurricane you want those power to do things like declare a mandatory evacuation. The only reason to declare such a thing is if you need those powers. So what does San Francisco need those powers for?
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      https://sfmayor.org/article/city-san-francisco-moves-proactively-prepare-possible-novel-coronavirus-activity-community https://sfmayor.org/article/city-san-francisco-moves-proacti... > The declaration of a local emergency is a legal document that will mobilize City resources, accelerate emergency planning, streamline staffing, coordinate agencies across the city, allow for future reimbursement by the state and federal governments and raise awareness throughout San Francisco about how everyone can prepare in the event that COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) appears in our community. Santa Clara and San Diego counties have issued similar declarations to bolster their preparedness. In the case of a snow storm up here in upstate NY, these tend to allow for overtime and pre-positioning of equipment. I'd imagine similar scenarios here.
leesec 7y ago
Well, please note that the entire of U.S.A has tested like 500~ people in total. Some expect there to be many more undetected cases that we're missing simply because we are not testing.
- flaque 7y ago
  That’s due to bayes theorem. If you test people who aren’t like to have caught the disease, and say the test has 1% chance to misdiagnose, you’ll almost certainly create wild amounts of false positives and spark a wider panic.
  - leesec 7y ago
    I think it's due to being extremely unprepared for the scale of testing required.
  - allovernow 7y ago
    The current test also has an absurdly high false negative rate - one source claims upwards of 50%. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51491763 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51491763
    - ithkuil 7y ago
      "One possible explanation is the tests are accurate and the patients do not have coronavirus at the time of testing"
      - allovernow 7y ago
        Sure if you want to cherry pick explanations. Likelier alternative is this is a new virus and the test needs to be adapted for it. Also we don't know where to swab for it. Another paper came out saying presymptomatic patients have concentrations of virus in their sinuses IIRC.
pmoriarty 7y ago
"There have been no confirmed coronavirus cases in San Francisco to date" There also has hardly been any testing.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  There also has hardly been any testing. Source? Or are you under the impression that there's a public announcement every time someone gets tested?
  - kadoban 7y ago
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/25/cdc-coronavirus-test/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/25/cdc-coronav...
  - zimbu668 7y ago
    Only 426 people tested in the entire US, so I think "hardly any testing" in SF is a fair statement. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html
droithomme 7y ago
> There have been no confirmed coronavirus cases in San Francisco to date Because the health care system nationally is refusing point blank to test people who have viral pneumonia even after they test negative for flu.
- ithkuil 7y ago
  Italian health care system has performed 10x more tests than neighbouring EU members such as France or Germany and founds 10x people positive to the virus. Italy is now the third most affected country (for some definition of "now" since the situation evolves rapidly) That doesn't mean it's necessarily a statistical artifact of the stance on testing. It could really be that Italy has been unlucky and once the infection spreads there the number of tests might be commensurate to the number of people showing symptoms. But it can also be an artefact of the engagement rules: the WHO guideline is to perform the test under certain conditions, some of them are clinical (e.g. specific symptoms of the respiratory system) some of them are not, e.g. whether you've been in an area that has been identified as affected. That is reasonable of course, but makes the numbers hard to compare. Imagine there are a number of undetected cases in a town in Germany, and that number is greater than whatever threshold would turn the surrounding area as a hotspot. Now anybody that passed through that area becomes eligible for testing and it's quite possible that the number of positive test results skyrockets (possibly triggering the creation of new hotspots etc). The situation on the ground hasn't change ; just our awareness of it (i.e. our information)

jiveturkey 7y ago

well, it is BI. that's what they do.

dekhn 7y ago

There have been confirmed coronavirus cases in SF, as a number of sick patients are/were being treated at hospitals in the city (I know, because my alma mater, UCSF, sent out a big press release about it). They probably mean nobody has been reported to be infected while in SF. That's probably also not true.

fluxsauce 7y ago
Can you link to the press release in question? Thanks!
- mikeyouse 7y ago
  Not the press release, but here's UCSF's Coronavirus info page where they state that there were two patients from a different California county with confirmed Coronavirus who were treated and released at UCSF Parnassus (the main campus on the hill near Cole Valley): https://www.ucsf.edu/coronavirus#cases https://www.ucsf.edu/coronavirus#cases
- dekhn 7y ago
  Hmm, I guess it was a 'statement', not a PR. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/U-S-officials-take-aggressive-measures-to-15027383.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/U-S-officials-ta... """ix people have tested positive for the new coronavirus in California — two in Southern California and the four people now in the Bay Area. The San Benito County patients, who are both 57, were at home until early Monday, when they were taken by ambulance to UCSF after their symptoms suddenly worsened. They are being cared for in isolation at the hospital. In a statement, UCSF said that it “specializes in the care of patients with complex illnesses, including infectious diseases like the novel coronavirus.” Doctors there “also treated patients during past epidemics, such as SARS in 2003.”""" (of all the places in the US you'd want to treat patients while studying them, UCSF is one of the top ones. They really are experts in infectious diseases).

d1zzy 7y ago

I'm curious how this "state of emergency" declaration works when everyone is doing it. AFAIK a lot of "state of emergency" declarations are about fund allocations from central sources (state, federal) and that works fine when it's used for exceptional cases/natural disasters but I doubt this will scale well when the entire country enters a state of emergency. I guess we shall see.

dahfizz 7y ago
Maybe that's why SF is declaring emergency so early
rolph 7y ago
its not just fund allocations but there is a change in operational stance for local governments and service providers its a different machine state than default mode if theres not enough money around the emergency rules will still be in effect
Retric 7y ago
Local governments in disaster prone areas tend to have significant emergency funds they can tap into. Doing so now to do an inventory of supplies, run some disaster planning, and possibly fill in any gaps is completely reasonable. They are unusually likely to see a small scale outbreak and effective early responses could make a huge difference.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Most importantly this allows using the emergency funds to boost local healthcare in case of an epidemic. Without the declaration the local government is unable to do so, just use it to bolster standard plans.

koheripbal 7y ago

I feel like the debate between the "don't panic" crowd and the "preppers" is a useless semantic debate between extremists. You want to react the appropriate amount. For the time being, you should go about your normal routine, but like the CDC said today, you should prepare for some major lifestyle disruptions.

robben1234 7y ago
Our world is filled with viruses, and we have set measures to fight it. I'm afraid Covid2019 might became a reason for another Patriot act, seizing people's rights and freedoms even more.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
irq11 7y ago
Sure, but “don’t panic” is not an extreme sentiment, nor does it imply you shouldn’t prepare. Panic over an illness that has infected a grand total of less than 100,000 people...out of 7 billion, is probably an overreaction, in almost every case. The amount of absolute garbage information flooding the internet right now has caused a lot of folks I know to freak out, when the relative risk of this virus is lower than any number of other things they do on a daily basis without a second thought. So yes, wash your hands more, try to avoid large crowds amd have a plan for when they cancel your kid’s school or whatever, but don’t start a run on canned goods at the local grocery store. It’s important to maintain perspective.
- hartator 7y ago
  How is avoid large crowd advice have more perspective than buy can food?
  - irq11 7y ago
    Your choice to avoid crowds helps everyone, because the crowds are one person smaller. Hoarding canned food from your local store hurts everyone, because now they have less food.

ars 7y ago

> To be clear, this declaration of emergency is all about preparedness. Is it me, or does this completely abuse the meaning of "state of emergency"?

dahfizz 7y ago
Just like the freedom act, many things in politics are named for popularity and not clarity. "Declaring a State of emergency" sounds better than "begging for more federal money"
ceejayoz 7y ago
It's not unusual to declare a state of emergency before a big snow storm, or a hurricane. Sometimes they blow through without much impact, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
- ars 7y ago
  A state of emergency grants the government some powerful things. It should not be abused. If you are declaring it for a hurricane you want those power to do things like declare a mandatory evacuation. The only reason to declare such a thing is if you need those powers. So what does San Francisco need those powers for?
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    https://sfmayor.org/article/city-san-francisco-moves-proactively-prepare-possible-novel-coronavirus-activity-community https://sfmayor.org/article/city-san-francisco-moves-proacti... > The declaration of a local emergency is a legal document that will mobilize City resources, accelerate emergency planning, streamline staffing, coordinate agencies across the city, allow for future reimbursement by the state and federal governments and raise awareness throughout San Francisco about how everyone can prepare in the event that COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) appears in our community. Santa Clara and San Diego counties have issued similar declarations to bolster their preparedness. In the case of a snow storm up here in upstate NY, these tend to allow for overtime and pre-positioning of equipment. I'd imagine similar scenarios here.

leesec 7y ago

Well, please note that the entire of U.S.A has tested like 500~ people in total. Some expect there to be many more undetected cases that we're missing simply because we are not testing.

flaque 7y ago
That’s due to bayes theorem. If you test people who aren’t like to have caught the disease, and say the test has 1% chance to misdiagnose, you’ll almost certainly create wild amounts of false positives and spark a wider panic.
- leesec 7y ago
  I think it's due to being extremely unprepared for the scale of testing required.
- allovernow 7y ago
  The current test also has an absurdly high false negative rate - one source claims upwards of 50%. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51491763 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51491763
  - ithkuil 7y ago
    "One possible explanation is the tests are accurate and the patients do not have coronavirus at the time of testing"
    - allovernow 7y ago
      Sure if you want to cherry pick explanations. Likelier alternative is this is a new virus and the test needs to be adapted for it. Also we don't know where to swab for it. Another paper came out saying presymptomatic patients have concentrations of virus in their sinuses IIRC.

pmoriarty 7y ago

"There have been no confirmed coronavirus cases in San Francisco to date" There also has hardly been any testing.

reaperducer 7y ago
There also has hardly been any testing. Source? Or are you under the impression that there's a public announcement every time someone gets tested?
- kadoban 7y ago
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/25/cdc-coronavirus-test/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/25/cdc-coronav...
- zimbu668 7y ago
  Only 426 people tested in the entire US, so I think "hardly any testing" in SF is a fair statement. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html

droithomme 7y ago

> There have been no confirmed coronavirus cases in San Francisco to date Because the health care system nationally is refusing point blank to test people who have viral pneumonia even after they test negative for flu.

ithkuil 7y ago
Italian health care system has performed 10x more tests than neighbouring EU members such as France or Germany and founds 10x people positive to the virus. Italy is now the third most affected country (for some definition of "now" since the situation evolves rapidly) That doesn't mean it's necessarily a statistical artifact of the stance on testing. It could really be that Italy has been unlucky and once the infection spreads there the number of tests might be commensurate to the number of people showing symptoms. But it can also be an artefact of the engagement rules: the WHO guideline is to perform the test under certain conditions, some of them are clinical (e.g. specific symptoms of the respiratory system) some of them are not, e.g. whether you've been in an area that has been identified as affected. That is reasonable of course, but makes the numbers hard to compare. Imagine there are a number of undetected cases in a town in Germany, and that number is greater than whatever threshold would turn the surrounding area as a hotspot. Now anybody that passed through that area becomes eligible for testing and it's quite possible that the number of positive test results skyrockets (possibly triggering the creation of new hotspots etc). The situation on the ground hasn't change ; just our awareness of it (i.e. our information)