hi everyone. i'm san francisco mayor london breed and i know that many of you have been anxious to hear what's happening with this new omicron variant. the coronavirus and we're here today to talk about and announce that here in the city and county of san francisco under the university of california san francisco and our partnership with the department of public health using the latest of technology, we have discovered our first case not only here in san francisco but the entire country and i wanted to at this time introduce dr. grant colfax to talk about the specifics and what that means in terms of what we need to do as a city. dr. colfax. >> thank you, mayor breed.

good morning everybody and thank you, mayor breed, for your ongoing leadership during this pandemic. and i want to thank our partners at u.c.s.f. and especially dr. charles chiu and his team and i'd also like to thank our testing partner dr. scott topper. both are here today. and, of course my partner dr. mary ellen carol. all of us have been working in the last 24 hours with our state and federal partners at cdc and the state department of health to determine whether this indeed is the first case of omicron that has been detected and that has indeed been the result of our work overnight. i want to acknowledge our

health officer dr. susan philip. but i also want to emphasize this is not a surprise. for those of you who knew, we thought omicron was already here. we just hadn't detected it yet. so this is cause for concern, but it's also certainly not a cause for panic. we are prepared in the city for this with regard to the case itself. the person recently traveled to south africa and they did the right thing and got tested and reported their travel history. they had mild symptoms and thankfully recovered. contacts have been notified by the health department. and, again, here's what we know now. san francisco is relatively well positioned to respond to

variants. our vaccine rate is high. more boosters are going into arms every day. 5-11-year-olds are getting vaccinated at rapid uptake. our masking and vaccine requirements are among the most stringent in the country. these efforts have been very effective in helping us slow the spread of the virus. and there's still a lot we do not know about omicron. we don't know how infectious itself although there's a strong likelihood that it is more infectious than delta. we don't know how sick it makes people. and we're studying that throughout the world. we don't know how the vaccines will protect against transmission due to omicron. but most experts that i have

spoken to believe the vaccine is still protective against the omicron variant. to best protect against this variant, get vaccinated for goodness sakes if you have not been vaccinated. get your booster if you're eligible. continue to wear those masks inside where required. continue to take the steps that we know that has been successful in san francisco to prevent major loss of life and to slow the spread of this virus. we know how to do this, san francisco. at this time, we do not anticipate changing any of our health orders or changing restrictions or imposing new

restrictions in san francisco. we will share information as we have it and get vaccinated, get your booster, wear the mask and for goodness sakes it's been a long almost 24 months now. please have a great holiday season with your family. and now i'd like to turn it over to dr. chiu whose team worked so hard overnight to make sure we get this information as quickly as possible. thank you. >> good afternoon. so my laboratory at university california san francisco has been working very closely over the past year with the san francisco department of public health, the california department of public health and color genomics on genome basics

of the virus. by that, we identify covid positive cases in the city and county, we make an attempt to sequence all cases that we are able to identify. this particular sample, i heard about it yesterday at about 3:00 p.m. and we were able to receive the sample in the laboratory by 8:00 p.m. we ran a very fast molecular test which looks for psychgene drop-out. we were able to get the results of that test within two hours showing that potentially this sample was an omicron variant sample l. to concur this finding, we needed the viral genome of this virus and we used a pocket size sequencer made by oxford technologies. this is a sequencing technology

in which we can go from detecting the virus to being able to detect the entire genome within a few hours. we were able to confirm the detection of omicron within five hours and we had most of the genome within eight hours. so 4:00 a.m. last night we were able to detect the omicron variant. thank you. >> thank you. i think the goal of the public is to get vaccinated. the challenges with the covid-19 virus and what this means is we want to make sure that people get vaccinated. so at this time, if anyone has

any questions, please let me know. are there any questions? yes. i'll let dr. colfax answer that question. >> i'm sorry. i heard about sequencing, but i didn't quite hear the details of the question. i'll try to answer what i take the character of the question to be which is we are

continuing to work with color, with dr. chiu's lab, with the state to sequence samples. we work with a number of partners in doing that. so generally, we're sampling more in san francisco and it depends on the site. so with our partnership at u.c.s.f. and the latino taskforce, all those samples are being sequenced and then i'll turn to have them answer what percent of their samples are being. i think the key with the sequencing right now with the sample, the turn around time is considerable. so that's why we really wanted to run this sample locally as quickly as possible. as you know, across the nation and across the state locally, we're continuing to ensure that we sequence specimens as quickly as possible.

again, i think the point is omicron is here. i don't want to be focused on when's the next case coming. we should all be reactive as we were yesterday. we need to get those vaccines and boosters get tested if you know that you've been exposed and continue to wear those masks. and i don't know if you have more to add. dr. topper. >> yeah. so color health provides much of the infrastructure to execute their programs to defend against covid. to make unique samples available for sequencing. almost 100% of the samples, of the positive samples that are identified in san francisco and in california are being routed for sequencing.

my name's scott topper. i'm the vice president of clinical operations at color. i'm going to let dr. philip answer that question. >> i believe you were talking about walking through contact tracing. first of all. thank you to our lab partners. also, thank you to the individual themselves. they recognized that they had symptoms and they did what we should all be doing which is to get tested with symptoms. and then they reached out to sfpdh, with our team. we were able to speak with

them. so with all investigations and contracting, we're talking to the individual, understanding what their risk factors might have been, in this case travel and i'm speaking with them to make sure they're staying home and once they know they have a positive test and then speaking to them about close contact. so that is the usual path that we follow, that is what we're doing in this case and we're in the process of doing that with this individual now. the question was what kind of close contacts? yeah. for privacy reasons, we are giving out limited information about the specifics of the individual, but we are in the process of finding out the people that may have been in close contact with them and reaching out to those individuals specifically. the general definition is of a close contact is someone who has been within 6' for 15

minutes or more. that's the definition that has not yet changed. as we are learning more. we will understand that that definition has to change if this virus was more transmissible and that is generally what we ask people about. we most often will ask what other people are residing in the home. it's generally the length of time and being with someone. that is all in process now. the question is now people have been traveling outside southern africa. the travel policy is governed at the national level and so we know there is a restriction, noncitizens traveling. we understand from our cdc colleagues that additional steps and requirements will be coming into place. and people are required to have a test within 72 hours.

and we likely will be hearing more in the coming days with omicron of additional steps people will be asked to take pre and post travel. >> the question was about age. we're not giving specific information. this was a previously healthy individual. their symptoms were mandy bujold and they did not have to be hospitalized. yes. this person was aware of the news of omicron and that's why they appropriately reached out after they returned from travel and then had their positive test result through the color laboratory. they got their result and

reached out to public health. so i really appreciate the person's awareness and collaboration on this case. >> yeah. there's another question here. yeah. i think that's probably an answer for dr. chiu. so the question is what lessons could sequencing provide for you. sequencing is very useful, has been shown to be very useful as a way to understand how understand the emergence of new variants in the community. it can also help with contact tracing, with being able to investigate outbreaks because

the genome sequence is very often is specific for giving an individual so we can use the genomic sequence for how the transmission chains from person to person in the course of an outbreak. and from this example, it's useful in identifying specific variants such as the omicron variant. to be able to identify the new variants in the community. i'm sorry. i missed that question. >> reporter: [inaudible] >> based on the question you're asking, is this the first sequence -- is this the first sample l that we've sequenced outside of the country?

this is the first example of where we saw the s-gene sample. i've been told we have time for one more question. thank you and just to emphasize, you know, this is not where we were 20 months ago. we are in a much better place. i don't want us to focus on counting omicron cases as much as the fact it is here, it's likely to increase over assume. we've got to get those boosters and vaccines. continue to wear the masks. thank you.

you're watching san francisco rising with chris manors. today's special guest is dr. steven zutnick. >> hello. the show is focused on restarting, rebuilding, and reimagining our city. the director of the therapy center of san francisco and he's a professor in counseling psychology at usf. he's here today to talk to us about resocializing, and returning to the office. welcome to the show. >>. >> thanks, chris. good to be back. >> as we re-open, people are having different reactions. some are embracing the recent shifts while others are having a hard time readjusting. >> yes. i think it's an excellent

question. my basic bias on this i think to give you a general overview is we ought to be following cdc suggestions and requirements, what they say, because that's where a lot of the things come. should i wear a mask. should i not wear a mask. my answer is, yes, absolutely. i think we should wear a mask. i think we should social distance. it not only makes an impact on covid, it makes an impact on other diseases as well. as you and i were chatting, the deaths from flu usually average 30,000 a year. we've had 2,500 deaths from the flu so far this year, but at the very least, you need to be vaccinated. >> going back to the office is also an issue. there are some people are thrilled returning to work, others are nervous about it and

there's a group of people who've been working onsite all along. let's start with those who are worried about returning to the office. what can be done to relieve their concerns? >> i think identifying a cohort of colleagues, fellow workers who you can just talk to and share experiences with. you know, when you look at the advantages of groups, the major one is when we sit and talk to other people, we suddenly discover, oh, this isn't just me, i'm not some strange guy here. so everybody else i'm talking to is worried about the same thing. i think that will raise awareness among people. to say, oh, i don't know, what are we going to do? do we have fresh air in here? can we open some windows? does the boss care if i wear a mask? >> how about those who've been going to work all along. possibly the most traumatized. how would you talk to them

about managing the possible stress and resentment they may have been feeling. >> the most at-risk population is the essential worker who because they are also one of the lowest paid populations, have taken the biggest hits and the most risks. they're still at high risk. so they're dealing with a lot. they're dealing with depression, anxiety, insomnia quite a bit. and you've got a lot of ptsd by the way one last point on the health care workers. that's the tip of the iceberg. these are also the people who often have the least access to therapy. so we've got all these people out of there who've been in the trenches the entire time, never had a break, suffering a lot of

trauma, and there are no services available for them. >> lastly, let's talk about management. with varying attitudes towards the lifting of restrictions, there may be some struggles in the work place. how would you advise management to ease the transition? >> management can encourage vaccination or require it. they can keep masks, physical distance, hand washing, all of these things. and hopefully management will be responsive. i think, you know, given the title that the series, this is all new. we're all just moving in to a whole new phase. we haven't begun to see the research that's going to come out of what we've just been through. we've been through a terrible pandemic. there's been a huge toll and i don't think we've seen the tip of the iceberg on the impact. >> do you have any final thoughts to share? >> yeah. i think this pandemic has highlighted a lot of things.

for me, certainly, is mental health professional and a behavioral scientist. it's clear to me, we need to educate people about science. this is not unknowable to people. the basic of science is constant questioning. when you ask a question in research, you get one answer and about five new questions. things evolve continuously. so, yeah, when the cdc first came out a year and a half ago, they said, no, we don't need masks and then they said oh, we do and then everybody went crazy. oh, look how bad the sciencetists are. that's exactly what science does. we thought we didn't need it. then we discovered it was air born. i think we're seeing we have huge holes in the health care

system and conversely, i think we're finding with the vaccination, what it means for everyone to have access to health care without worrying about how am i going to pay for it. so i think this is really forcing us to look at everything. it's been a very difficult time. it's going to continue to be a difficult time for people, but i think that's also getting us to look at some really critical issues in health care. >> well, thank you so much for coming on the show dr. zlotnick. well, thanks again. we'll be back with another episode of san francisco rising shortly. for sfgov tv i'm chris manors. thanks for watching.

>> this meeting will come to order. welcome to the november 29, 2021 regular committee of land use and transportation of is san francisco board of supervisors. i am supervisor melgar joined by supervisor preston and peskin. erica major is our clerk. i would acknowledge sfgovtv for staffing this meeting. do you have any announcements? >> committee members participated through video conference to the same extent as if present. the board recognizes that public access is essential and invites public participation in the following ways. public comment will be available on each item on the