and that completes the business before you today, chair. >> chair borden: we're going to adjourn our meeting in memory of dr. brinkman and our next meeting is march 16th. >> take care, everyone. . >> the hon. london breed: good morning. i'm san francisco mayor london breed, and i'm really excited to be here at pier 39 today. i'm excited to be here today

because we have some good news. i know i gave it away last week when i said that the state was going to finally allow us to get into the red tier. we were keeping our fingers crossed, hoping we would get here, and guess what? we're here. we're in the red. now, i know red doesn't sound that great, but it's great. here we are. we were in the super purple, dr. colfax, and what that means is this is just the beginning. this is the beginning of a new day for san francisco. today, i'm joined by director of public health, dr. grant colfax, the director of the port commission, elaine forbes, the director of the golden gate

restaurant association, as well as the executive director of pier 39. most people who come to pier 39 are the people who visit our city, but let me just tell you, pier 39 and specifically the wharf and this area which attracts tourists from all over the country, this is also and can be a destination for san franciscans, especially at a time like this. and because we're in the red tier, the opportunity to expand what we open and what we make available to the public is really exciting. in fact, when i went to galileo high school near ghirardelli square, some of us would go

down the street -- this is when atari came out, and nintendo was just starting to take over the game. when people came to san francisco, we felt like we were ambassadors because they always had questions about where to go and what to do. for everyone, i'm sure you're tired of being cooped in the house and want something to do. here is your chance to come to pier 39 and get irish coffee at cioppino's, scoma's, and some of the places that we all know and love. what better way to come out and open the doors than to come out and open the doors and enjoy

your own city, to do a staycation in san francisco. what does a red tier mean for san francisco? it means that indoor dining can begin to resume at 25%. for us ladies, we can get facials now, and places like our ferris wheel in golden gate park, the carousel pier, can open. so you better go ride the ferris wheel in golden gate park before the fun police shut it down. there are so many things to do in san francisco, and what we want to do is we want to support them. we want to support our

businesses, to enjoy our city, but we still have to remember we are still in the midst of a global pandemic. so that means in a restaurant, when you're waiting for your table, keep your mask on. when your waiter walks up to the table, put your mask on. when you go to use the rest room, put your mask on. we're in the red zone now, but in a few weeks, we'll probably be in the orange, and that means we open our city more. and then, eventually, we'll be in the yellow. once we get vaccine and have more supply, we'll be in a better place. as of this day, over 22% of san franciscans over the age of 16 have been vaccinated, and 54% of those 65 and up have been vaccinated, and those are our

most vulnerable population. those are the ones most likely to get covid. we're in an amazing place. we're not completely where we want to be, but we're better than we have been since october of last year. so i'm excited. this is the beginning of a great time in san francisco. he saved money, not buying those plane tickets to other places. you can come out, enjoy the shops and incredibly vibrancy of pier 39. you want to go and visit alcatraz, even though you want to make sure you have a ticket to come back so you don't get

stuck over there. take advantage of every opportunity, but be mindful of the fact that we are not where we need to be yet, but we are getting there, san francisco. we're getting there because we stuck together. yes, i've had to come out here sometimes and, you know, ask people to be on their best behavior, dolores park and some other places, but ultimately, san francisco has had one of the lowest infection rates and lowest death rates of any other major city in the country. we should be proud. i am, and i'm excited about what this means for the future. so folks, let's see what this means. let's slowly get back our city so we can do what we know and

we love and -- we can get back to what we know and what we love and what we miss. and now, let's talk about the numbers with the doctors in the house. dr. grant colfax. [applause] >> well good morning, everybody. today is a great day for san francisco, and i'm so proud of how far we've done, and thank you, mayor breed, for your leadership during this unprecedented time. we've now emerged from the worst surge since the beginning of this pandemic, and we are ready to slowly start opening again to support our businesses and to resume some of the activities we've so sorely missed during these past months. right now, san francisco is

averaging about 67 new cases of covid-19 every day, and while that's still far too many covid cases, we are down from 169 that we had at the beginning of february and far down from our peak surge in december. right now, we are at about 7.5 new cases per 100,000 residents, and as we look at our city testing rate, our seven-day rolling average rate of positivity is just about 1.5%. our hospitalizations are also down by 72% from their peak, and right now, we have 74 people hospitalized across san francisco, and we are at a relatively robust 31% i.c.u.

intensive care unit capacity. we've made great progress these past few months, and these key indicators are the very reason we're gradually able to reopen. it's because people in san francisco did their part: socially distanced, wearing masks, and avoided traveling outside except for essential businesses. now we are able to move in to the red tier, and here in san francisco, our health equity metric continues to improve. nationally, for that metric, we are now in the orange tier, with a most recent value of 3.5%. and today's local good news follows the great news that we now have a third vaccine: the johnson & johnson product. this is another key development. we know that our vaccines are

our ticket out of this pandemic. so soon here in san francisco, we will have three vaccines to offer people. our vaccine rollout continues. we have administered over 250,000 shots in san francisco. this is not sufficient, but we are making progress, and we now have the capacity to administer well over 10,000 vaccines a day. we just need that supply to improve. and because we haven't gotten all those vaccines into arms yet, we have a way to go, it is critical that we stay vigilant to maintain our progress. and when it is your turn, and you are offered the vaccine, take the shot. these vaccines are safe and effective, and along with our safety measures, are our way

forward. i do also want to briefly mention the variants. while we have so many kinds of hope, our variants are a concerning factor, and we are watching and monitoring the situation closely. there is a growing presence of more variants in our region, and they represent an increased risk of transmission of the virus. nationally, as you can seen, cases have started to rise slightly over the last couple of days, so this is why we need to continue to double down on those prevention measures. remember, san francisco, we know despite this unprecedented year and all the uncertainty, we know how to slow the spread of the virus. we've beaten back three surges. let's keep our progress. i have been amazed and inspired by the ways our city has responded to these moments, and i know this has been an incredibly difficult year for

us in our community, but remember, mask on, stay strong. by committing to the guidelines and following the tried-and-true preventative measures we know work, we can continue moving forward. thank you. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: thank you, dr. colfax, and just want to reiterate that now as a result of our vaccines, we're providing vaccines for those in 1-a and 1-b. many of you know that we announced that last week, and what that means is people who are teachers, people who are child care workers, those who are muni drivers and others are able to get the vaccines, but also, what's really exciting is

that restaurant workers will be able to get the vaccine because of where we are in the 1-b tier. and today to talk about the restaurants and about what they face but also to get you excited about going to restaurants is laura thomas, the director of the golden gate restaurant association. [applause] >> hi, everyone, and thank you, mayor breed for inviting me to come today. can everyone hear me today? it's pretty windy, so i'll try to talk into the microphone. so this year has been so challenging to our industry, and many have been without work as we've had to shutter our restaurants in response. we are really thankful for the strong, science driven leadership we have in san francisco with mayor breed, dr.

colfax, dr. philips, and oewd. we also really appreciate what mayor breed and the team was able to do last week and give all of us a one kind of week heads up so we could all be ready to open up for the public hopefully tomorrow for indoor dining and the amazing outdoor dining that we've been able to take advantage of with shared spaces. so while shared spaces is continuing, we're all excited to take the next step in this march, which is 25% indoor dining capacity. this doesn't save our industry, but again, it lets us start to move forward to losing less money, i like to say. i have two restaurants myself, and i have to say it's been a really financially devastating year, and we're grateful for

the help at the local, state, and federal level, but it's not enough. we need to safely reopen and moving in that direction. with that in mind, i just want to go over a few points that we reiterated last week that we'll be doing with the city. how do we safely reopen? we're going to open a little bit looser restrictions on the outdoor dining. we're going to allow no curfew, so as long as you're seated and eating, you can dine beyond the 10:00 p.m. time frame that we've done before. we're going to loosen it to three households, six people or less. you have to have bona fide meals without alcohol just to keep everything under control. that's why it's there. everything is going to feel

tighter, but remember, we're moving forward. we're going to ask that people sit in tables of four or less, that it's one household. and mayor breed said it, and i know it's a pain, but whenever approaches you, be it a waiter, a busser, a server, or a manager, we need you to put your mask back on before they reach the table. to help educate the public that this is going to help the situation, the easier it's going to be on everybody. we ask for your help communicating that message. there will be signs. they will say if you're seating inside, you are going to need to continue -- we are good night to continue the curfew there, so that will stay there. we're going to ask that everybody is completely outside by 10:30. nobody can do reservations or enter after 10:00, and that we want to just keep it calm for a

while until we can move to the orange. if you have an issue, please dine outside. if you're still uncomfortable, we're all doing to-go, we're all doing delivery, and we appreciate everybody's support of our industry, and we want to get everybody vaccinated. it's been amazing. we're one week into the vaccines for our industry of workers, and we're seeing things moving forward now. we appreciate everybody's support, and we couldn't have a better team here to work with. thank you. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: thank you, laura. just a side note that candy baron has pink popcorn, if you remember pink popcorn from back in the day.

feel free to go in and grab some. the other line is the f-line, they'll start serving this community seven days a week starting in may. i know there's been a lot of talk about the cable cars. now you know we're not san francisco without cable cars, so just so you know, the cable cars are coming back, and they're coming back sometime this year, date to be determined. so with that, thank you so much for being here. happy to open it up to questions. [inaudible] >> the hon. london breed: well, i think i'm more optimistic than confident. i would say that what we're doing with the vaccines especially with the most vulnerable population, those who are the ones most likely to be hospitalized, those have been extremely helpful. and i think as we continue to

see hospitalizations continue to decline, i think we'll be in a good place. i'm pretty optimistic and hopeful, and i think that we are in a very, very good place to not go backwards, and it also is going to be contingent on our behavior, as well, but i think a combination of vaccine and our behavior is going to put us in a situation where we most likely won't go backwards. [inaudible] >> the hon. london breed: laura, do you want to talk about that? >> yeah, i'll be happy to. so we've always had the restaurant workers -- we provide p.p.e. if they want it, the face masks. we've all followed the sanitation guidelines for the sanitizers. you guys have seen it if you've gone out, wiping the