During the coronavirus pandemic, health care providers are facing shortages of the supplies and equipment they need to treat patients safely and effectively, while protecting their own health. Eric Talbert is the western regional director for MedShare, which collects and redistributes surplus medical supplies. He says MedShare is helping to get essential medical supplies and equipment to the places they’re needed most in the battle against COVID-19.

With the Bay Area under a shelter-in-place order because of the coronavirus pandemic, people are being asked to stay home. But for those without housing, that is difficult. San Francisco is implementing measures like installing public hand-washing stations and instructing people who are living on the streets to limit themselves to one person per tent. But certain plans are still unclear, and the situation is becoming increasingly urgent. Brian Howey has been covering the intersection of homelessness and the coronavirus pandemic for the Public Press. When he visited several hand-washing stations in the past few days, he found broken or missing equipment and supplies, and confusion about what the city’s policies will be and what resources are available.

In What's New & What's Next, the Civic team offers a roundup of San Francisco news and a look at what's ahead on the city's calendar. The news: CPUC eliminates footnote that keeps ride-hailing safety data secret; SFUSD schools close for three weeks; non-essential gatherings of more than 100 banned. Coming up: City encourages remote civic engagement rather than in-person; Board of Supervisors plans special meeting on coronavirus response.

The California Public Utilities Commission, the body that regulates ride-hailing, has unanimously voted to reverse a policy that allowed safety reports filed by Uber and Lyft to be kept hidden from the public. The commission receives these reports, but due to an obscure footnote inserted into its rules in 2013, does not release them to the public or to local government agencies. Seth Rosenfeld, whose reporting brought this policy into the spotlight, explains what the vote does and doesn't mean for data transparency.

Nurses around the country gathered outside hospitals today, criticizing how the CDC and individual hospitals are handling the outbreak. The California Nurses Association, National Nurses Organizing Committee and National Nurses United issued a statement calling the CDC’s guidelines “weakened” and called employer responses “ineffective.” “Civic” spoke with one registered nurse at UCSF, outside the Parnassus campus, who said nurses felt left out of the conversation about responding to COVID-19.

Students at San Francisco State University are grappling with conflicting directions about student housing during the coronavirus outbreak. Students who live in dormitories received an email last night instructing them to leave campus housing due to the coronavirus outbreak. This morning, the school followed up with an email saying students would not be forced to leave their dorms, but left the decision up to students and asked anyone who chooses to stay in campus housing to notify the school by March 12.