and how to slow the spread of the virus. doctor, welcome to the show. >> thank you so much for having me. >> can we begin by talking about when the city's contact tracing program began and what are the services? >> sure. so we began contact tracing on the first day that we had a case here in san francisco, so that was march 5 of this year. the purpose of our program is to provide comprehensive services to people who are close to and diagnosed with covid. this includes anyone who's newly diagnosed gets a phone call from our trained health professionals in which we talk more about their diagnosis, make sure that they have accurate information. we then go into understanding a little bit more about their symptoms and trying to better understand when they first may have become infectious to others. as part of that, we will then talk about anyplaces they may

have visited for an extended period of time and people they were in contact with. we then seek to better understand the individuals that they were in touch with by collecting names and phone numbers so that then we can reach out to these individuals and make sure that they have the information that they need in order to quarantine and get access to immediate testing for covid. >> how does the program work? how many people are actually acting as contact tracers, and what do they do? >> so we had over 100 people activated with the city to provide active contact tracing actions for san franciscans. so this team is highly trained in being able to provide everyone diagnosed with covid with information about what this means to them and make sure that they know the resources that are available to them so that they can safely isolate. this team then also has worked

with several social workers as well as other city departments to make sure that this individual has wraparound services in order to complete their isolation in quarantine. in general, we have staff that represents all diverse backgrounds in san francisco, and they are also able to provide linguistically appropriate services to make sure we are able to meet the needs of the people being diagnosed. >> that's great. when we run a huge program in the mission district, what role did contact tracing play in that effort. was there anything notable? >> so previous to this pandemic, san francisco public health has been tracking communities disproportionately affected by covid-19. we provided a large community-based testing campaign in the mission. as part of this campaign, we

found that while latinos made up 44% of the people who were tested, they made up 95% of people who ended up being diagnosed. we also found that 90% of the people who were diagnosed with covid-19 could not work from home, suggesting that this disease is impacting communities that may be unable to work from home or have the resources to stay at home during their shelter in place order. so as part of these activities, it's really a reflection of what we're seeing citywide in that we need to make sure that people who are at the greatest risk for covid have the resources needed in order to take time off of work as necessary, as they're diagnosed with covid. >> i think as we've seen in new york, density is a huge factor, so it makes sense that there would be quite a few cases in the mission district. >> yeah. we did find that the median

size of the household was greater than three, and the majority of people who had been diagnosed with covid, so this does go back to the fact that covid is really likely to transmit within households, and we need to make sure that households have the information that they need if somebody is diagnosed with covid, and that they can appropriately cleanup, clean their spaces, and they can self-isolate, and as necessary, they have access to city funded hotel rooms where they can safely isolate or quarantine for the required period of time and reduce their risk of spreading covid to others. >> just to confirm, these tests are completely free, right? what kind of turnaround do we have? >> so fortunately, san francisco offers free testing to san franciscans who have even one symptom consistent with covid-19. what you need to know about

this testing is that you have to schedule it on-line, but that you don't need any medical insurance, and you don't need a doctor's note. in addition, testing is available to all san franciscans regardless of immigration status. you'll be able to get your test results in just one to five days after getting a test, and you'll get follow up through the health department if you're found to have covid-19, including access to all of our tracing activities that i've talked about today. so if you have an opportunity to test for covid, i recommend that you go for it because it's important that we all really understand that testing is part of our new normal and a really important pillar for our fight against covid transmission here in san francisco. >> now, some communities have been responding differently to the virus. some have been asking their citizens to keep a diary so they can remember who they've

seen, while others are encouraged to download an app to their phone so they can keep track of tracing. have we considered any of these steps. >> so a major part of tracing is to talk to someone about where they've been and who they've been in contact with prior to developing symptoms or on the date of their test. this requires jogging somebody's memory, and as we all know, it can be hard to recall all of the things that one has participated in days -- in the past several days. so we recommend that everyone pay attention to what they're doing as we lift our shelter in place orders, and we are carefully looking at the possibility of being able to support and being able to understand where someone may have been and who else may have been exposed to covid. but as part of that, we're keeping careful caution and

doing our due diligence to ensure that people's privacy and confidentiality is maintained. this is the number one priority for us in the department of public health. we want anything that we offer through an app to be supplementing instead of replacing our currently contact tracing efforts. >> so it seems like any app-based program the city might offer would be on a strictly opt-in basis? >> absolutely. we would want people to choose whether or not they want to participate in any of these app-based programs, and it would strictly be voluntarily if they were diagnosed with covid and they wanted to share information with the department of public health and others. we really want to make sure that any app that we recommend as a department is completely confidential and maintains the highest levels of privacy, and

also is able to supplement our current offering of contact tracing and not become a distraction whereby people are getting notified that don't have contacts or information that they need in order to take the appropriate next steps. >> yeah. i think it would address people's concerns if it's strictly voluntarily whether you use the app or not. so finally, what would you say to our residents is the best way to stay safe during this pandemic? >> well, i like to boil is down to a short little phrase. cover your face, test early, and trace. and what i mean by that, as well as our shelter in place restrictions, we really want people to continue into their new normal life wearing a mask. we know that this is a very protective way of preventing the spread of covid, and we want everyone to adopt this practice in their life as they

move forward. we also want people to pay a lot of attention to their bodies as we begin to get back into the world as well as any symptoms that may be consistent with covid-19. fortunately, we have the tests here in san francisco to make sure that every san franciscan can access a test if they have symptoms. so if somebody is experiencing any symptoms, we want them to seek out those testing services immediately and isolate and note their results. and finally, if somebody is diagnosed with covid-19, we want to make sure that they have been paying attention to who they've been spending time with in the days prior to their symptoms or the days prior to their tests. so that includes an element of tracing your foot steps, as i like to say, and being mindful of your actions, particularly any interactions where you may not have been masked or may

have been spending time with people over ten minutes and less than 6 feet apart. by keeping track of people you may have been in contact with, it'll be much easier to work with the health department and reach out to those individuals to make sure that they know that they were exposed to somebody with covid-19 and they can get the appropriate testing and quarantine so we can ongoingly reduce the risk of transmission to others. >> that's really fantastic information, doctor. i really appreciate the time you've given us today. i know you're really busy. >> yeah, i appreciate the conversation. >> thanks again. that's it for this episode of coping with covid-19. for sfgtv, i'm chris manners. thanks for watching. >> : this commission meeting iso

provisions of the brown act and recent executive orders to facilitate tele conferences. ordinarily the brown act has strict rules foretell a conferencing. the governor's order has suspended those rules sm the department has met all of the applicable notice requirements. as noted on the agenda members of the public may observe this meeting via sfgovtv. they may offer public comment by calling the public comment phone number. i wan