17 ms·

I live here and to anyone who doesn’t know san francisco this might help explain why I am not surprised (and probably anyone living here isn’t as well): - Ever

by baby 5y ago

I live here and to anyone who doesn’t know san francisco this might help explain why I am not surprised (and probably anyone living here isn’t as well): - Everybody wears a mask here. Everyone. Even vaccinated people and children. It’s taken extremely seriously. And I’m not even talking about social distancing. Everything has been closed since the beginning of the virus and indoor dining is merely re-opening. - san francisco has the largest homeless population I’ve seen in the world (and I’ve traveled and lived in a bit everywhere in the world including many poor countries). On top of that, drug is hitting homeless people hard. It’s extremely common to see someone shooting themselves with a syringe here.

blumomo 5y ago
To say "Mask mandates are useful b/c we have more drug dead than covid dead" is not logically plausible. The fact that measure have been useful rather shows wishful thinking to me.
jmcgough 5y ago
Most people dying from drug overdoses aren't homeless.
- shoto_io 5y ago
  Isn't it interesting how our perception of reality is shaped by what we observe daily?
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    "In the world of phenomena, perception is everything." - some philosopher (cannot google who)
StavrosK 5y ago
I don't know about SF specifically, but according to [1], California is doing about average for the US and is at the world's top 30 (higher is worse) for deaths per million, so I'd guess it's more #2 than #1. Is SF doing significantly better than the rest of California, in general? Hopefully now enough people are vaccinated that the rates have dropped.
- jmcgough 5y ago
  The cases per capita in SF were about 1/10 those in LA at its peak, so the pandemic in california was really focused in socal.
  - StavrosK 5y ago
    Oh aha, thanks for that stat, I didn't know.
    - khawkins 5y ago
      I had the same suspicion and did the math based on the numbers below. 40,273 cases/1M pop (better than 49 states) 597 deaths/1M pop (better than 48 states) https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://data.sfgov.org/stories/s/COVID-19-Cases-and-Deaths/dak2-gvuj/ https://data.sfgov.org/stories/s/COVID-19-Cases-and-Deaths/d... https://www.usapopulation.org/san-francisco-population/ https://www.usapopulation.org/san-francisco-population/
  - refurb 5y ago
    But you’re comparing a city of 800k to a city of 10M.
awb 5y ago
I don’t know what’s going on here either with masks. 30-50 year old adults outside, alone, in direct sunlight, exercising, dozens of feet away from anyone else are still wearing masks. No doubt they’re fully vaccinated by now as well. And multiple times a day you see people driving alone in cars wearing masks. Just the other week, we overheard a young girl commenting on a woman not wearing a mask, “she’s a bad person, isn’t she mommy?” “No, she’s not a bad person, just inconsiderate”, the mother replied. This was in response to a fully vaccinated adult walking in a state park alone, in broad daylight, 3-4x father away than social distancing guidelines require. I’m glad we took COVID seriously here earlier and longer than most states, but now that several states are reporting 0 deaths and vaccination rates are climbing the fear of an explosion of cases should hopefully be subsiding. In the beginning comparing mental health to a potentially uncontrolled global pandemic I think was a serious misunderstanding of how exponential growth works, but now that the pandemic is getting under control it makes sense to weigh mental health more heavily.
- Mauricebranagh 5y ago
  Even last year if I was out in the open air I didn't wear a mask only when say queuing for public transport. And I am an immunosuppressed solid organ transplant patient.
- ianlevesque 5y ago
  So how do we get the rest of the country to do this?
  - preordained 5y ago
    Be irrational?
  - mdoms 5y ago
    Why would you want that?
  - rpunkfu 5y ago
    Blindly follow orders, which make no sense? I do wear a mask at all times when in public, but come on, I'm not going to the forest to walk my dogs with my mask on. People got too comfortable with not doing any thinking on their own, instead went fully autopilot based on news and government.
annexrichmond 5y ago
I’m not sure why you cite consistent mask usage as the primary reason. What I imagine to be a more likely cause is that there is a large proportion of SF’s population (esp compared to other cities) that are professionals who have the privilege to be able to work from home without worrying about losing their jobs. Couple that with vast grocery and food delivery services. So staying home is more convenient than most places
- refurb 5y ago
  Your bubble is showing. SF has massive swaths of people who aren’t in white collar jobs and have been working the entire time. They actually make up a lot of the cases that did happen.
cozos 5y ago
I live in San Francisco. I look at pictures of (maskless) people on billboards and have to stop myself from judging them.
te_chris 5y ago
Find it strange the way the US has gone all in for masks while in the UK it's only inside.
threatofrain 5y ago
Don’t SJ and LA have bigger homeless pop?

by baby 5y ago

blumomo 5y ago

To say "Mask mandates are useful b/c we have more drug dead than covid dead" is not logically plausible. The fact that measure have been useful rather shows wishful thinking to me.

jmcgough 5y ago

Most people dying from drug overdoses aren't homeless.

shoto_io 5y ago
Isn't it interesting how our perception of reality is shaped by what we observe daily?
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  "In the world of phenomena, perception is everything." - some philosopher (cannot google who)

StavrosK 5y ago

I don't know about SF specifically, but according to [1], California is doing about average for the US and is at the world's top 30 (higher is worse) for deaths per million, so I'd guess it's more #2 than #1. Is SF doing significantly better than the rest of California, in general? Hopefully now enough people are vaccinated that the rates have dropped.

jmcgough 5y ago
The cases per capita in SF were about 1/10 those in LA at its peak, so the pandemic in california was really focused in socal.
- StavrosK 5y ago
  Oh aha, thanks for that stat, I didn't know.
  - khawkins 5y ago
    I had the same suspicion and did the math based on the numbers below. 40,273 cases/1M pop (better than 49 states) 597 deaths/1M pop (better than 48 states) https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://data.sfgov.org/stories/s/COVID-19-Cases-and-Deaths/dak2-gvuj/ https://data.sfgov.org/stories/s/COVID-19-Cases-and-Deaths/d... https://www.usapopulation.org/san-francisco-population/ https://www.usapopulation.org/san-francisco-population/
- refurb 5y ago
  But you’re comparing a city of 800k to a city of 10M.

awb 5y ago

I don’t know what’s going on here either with masks. 30-50 year old adults outside, alone, in direct sunlight, exercising, dozens of feet away from anyone else are still wearing masks. No doubt they’re fully vaccinated by now as well. And multiple times a day you see people driving alone in cars wearing masks. Just the other week, we overheard a young girl commenting on a woman not wearing a mask, “she’s a bad person, isn’t she mommy?” “No, she’s not a bad person, just inconsiderate”, the mother replied. This was in response to a fully vaccinated adult walking in a state park alone, in broad daylight, 3-4x father away than social distancing guidelines require. I’m glad we took COVID seriously here earlier and longer than most states, but now that several states are reporting 0 deaths and vaccination rates are climbing the fear of an explosion of cases should hopefully be subsiding. In the beginning comparing mental health to a potentially uncontrolled global pandemic I think was a serious misunderstanding of how exponential growth works, but now that the pandemic is getting under control it makes sense to weigh mental health more heavily.

Mauricebranagh 5y ago
Even last year if I was out in the open air I didn't wear a mask only when say queuing for public transport. And I am an immunosuppressed solid organ transplant patient.
ianlevesque 5y ago
So how do we get the rest of the country to do this?
- preordained 5y ago
  Be irrational?
- mdoms 5y ago
  Why would you want that?
- rpunkfu 5y ago
  Blindly follow orders, which make no sense? I do wear a mask at all times when in public, but come on, I'm not going to the forest to walk my dogs with my mask on. People got too comfortable with not doing any thinking on their own, instead went fully autopilot based on news and government.

annexrichmond 5y ago

I’m not sure why you cite consistent mask usage as the primary reason. What I imagine to be a more likely cause is that there is a large proportion of SF’s population (esp compared to other cities) that are professionals who have the privilege to be able to work from home without worrying about losing their jobs. Couple that with vast grocery and food delivery services. So staying home is more convenient than most places

refurb 5y ago
Your bubble is showing. SF has massive swaths of people who aren’t in white collar jobs and have been working the entire time. They actually make up a lot of the cases that did happen.

cozos 5y ago

I live in San Francisco. I look at pictures of (maskless) people on billboards and have to stop myself from judging them.

te_chris 5y ago

Find it strange the way the US has gone all in for masks while in the UK it's only inside.

threatofrain 5y ago

Don’t SJ and LA have bigger homeless pop?