Civic

The majority of San Francisco residents have gotten vaccinated against the coronavirus. But a lack of trust in the healthcare system or trouble making an appointment or going to a vaccination site may still pose barriers for some, especially people experiencing homelessness. Dr. Margot Kushel, a physician and researcher who directs the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, is part of a collaborative multi-organizational effort to bring the vaccines to people out on the streets.

The delta variant has arrived in the Bay Area. Though San Francisco's case numbers seem to be rising, most residents are vaccinated here. But people under age 12 aren’t eligible yet, which raises the question of what to do in schools. San Francisco will require all students to wear masks indoors, but not outdoors, while at school. Dr. Susan Philip, San Francisco’s Health Officer, returns to Civic to talk about the details of the current mask rules, the delta variant, and the importance of vaccines.

**Update, 7/16: A few days after this episode published, Bay Area health officials made a joint recommendation that everyone wear masks in public indoor settings, regardless of vaccination status. They cited an increase in COVID-19 cases and increased circulation of the delta variant.**

Bruce Wheeler was diagnosed with COVID-19 last spring, but never fully recovered, suffering a variety of symptoms of what has become known as "long COVID." He's not alone — according to a UC Davis overview of a handful of recent studies, more than one in four COVID-19 patients develop symptoms lasting for months, even if they had mild cases. Bruce and Dr. Brian Block, who has helped treat him and who is one of the founding clinicians at UCSF’s COVID recovery clinic, talk about the condition and what's still unknown about it.

Research has shown links between residential racial segregation and a plethora of health concerns, from asthma to obesity. Segregation can also be a factor in wealth — household incomes and home values in white neighborhoods are nearly twice as high as those in segregated communities of color. These are some of the key points laid out in a new report from the Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. And segregation seems to be worsening. The institute’s Roots of Structural Racism Project found that among U.S. metropolitan regions with more than 200,000 residents, 81% were more segregated in 2019 than they were in 1990. Stephen Menendian, assistant director and director of research at the institute, talks about tracing structural racism to its roots and the importance of addressing segregation.

As some California cities move away from gas in new buildings to address climate change, and after recent news that gas lines in some San Francisco buildings have been encased in concrete during seismic retrofits, we explore the hazardous tradeoffs of burning fossil fuels in buildings. Sasan Saadat, a research and policy analyst with Earthjustice, gives an overview of the pollution created by gas use and explains some of the shortcomings of fossil gas alternatives.

California's eviction moratorium protecting tenants who have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic was set to expire at the end of June. Legislators extended it, but the state law supersedes local pandemic eviction protections, and prevents city legislators from adding new ones through March of next year. Ora Prochovnick, director of litigation and policy at the Eviction Defense Collaborative, unpacks the details.

San Francisco and California have formed advisory committees to formulate a plan for reparations for African Americans, to study and work to make right the harms done by slavery, segregation and systemic racism. Rev. Amos Brown, senior pastor at Third Baptist Church of San Francisco and president of the San Francisco branch of the NAACP is on both committees and discusses California’s legacy of racism and what form reparations could take in this state and city.

As companies mull bringing staff who have been working from home back into the office, mechanical engineer Steve Taylor's consulting firm has been fielding questions about making offices as safe as they were pre-pandemic through upgrades to HVAC systems. That's not possible, he says — but if workers wear masks, existing systems that meet ventilation standards we already have should be enough to bring the risk of infection to acceptable levels.

In recent years, the mills and foundries that receive recyclables from Recology have stopped accepting material with more than one percent impurities, so the sorting facility at Pier 96 must work at a very high standard. On a tour of the sorting center, we learn what happens when things that don't belong in the recycling end up there, and what to do about things that are difficult to recycle, like plastic bags.