July 5, 2022 - COVID-19 cases are rising in San Francisco and nationwide as more transmissible coronavirus variants make up a growing share of new infections. Hospitalization of people with COVID is also on the upswing, but deaths remain low in the highly vaccinated Bay Area.

"People should not forget about COVID," San Francisco Health Officer Dr. Susan Philip told the Bay Area Reporter in a June 30 phone interview. "It's a challenging time because cases remain high. We're watching the newer subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, which are increasing as a proportion of viruses sequenced in California. What we're watching most closely is hospitalizations."

COVID cases plateaued in May and June after reaching their highest-ever peak in January, but the latest numbers from the San Francisco Department of Public Health show a recent upturn. The provisional new case count on June 27, after the month's Pride events, was 596, the highest since mid-May. The city's test positivity rate — the proportion of tests that come back positive — is around 15%, but health officials acknowledge this is an underestimate because many people now test at home and don't report their results.

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Source: <https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/03/19/1087682826/omicron-variant-ba2-surge>