- A resident at a San Francisco homeless shelter is the first to be confirmed positive for COVID-19, the coronavirus disease, in the city.
- The resident was taken to a hotel room for self-isolation.
- Officials are now attempting to prevent a potential outbreak within the city's homeless population.
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A resident at a San Francisco homeless shelter has tested positive for the coronavirus disease, known as COVID-19.
It's the first confirmed case of the disease in a San Francisco homeless shelter, as the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The individual was living at one of the city's Navigation Centers, the shelter programs set up in the city to help people exit homelessness.
Officials are now attempting to prevent a potential outbreak among the city's homeless community. Following the resident's positive test, healthcare workers were sent to the shelter to screen all residents and staff for COVID-19 symptoms, and a cleaning crew was instructed to disinfect the facility, according to the Chronicle.
The person was taken for self-isolation in a hotel room and is in "good condition."
The city has turned to the thousands of unoccupied hotel rooms in San Francisco as priority housing sites for healthcare workers, first repsonders, and those who are homeless who need to self-isolate. The city's travel and tourism industries have taken a hit amid the coronavirus pandemic, and hotels have offered more than 11,000 rooms for that purpose. San Francisco's Moscone Center, which usually hosts large tech conferences, has been turned into a makeshift homeless shelter to make way for better social distancing practices at existing shelters.
Homeless advocates, like Jennifer Friedenbach with the Coalition on Homelessness, had been urging city officials to begin placing those who are homeless in hotel rooms even before an outbreak began.
"The folks who live at that Navigation Center are very vulnerable ... this was exactly why we had been pushing them to stop the practice of having them sleep one on top of the other," Friedenbach told The Chronicle.
The Coalition of Homelessness posted a tweet about the resident who tested positive.
"This is why we have been demanding that the City house homeless people in hotel rooms BEFORE they are infected + infect 150+ people staying there," reads the tweet.
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#BREAKING: A shelter resident at the Division Circle Navigation Center has tested positive for #COVID19.
This is why we have been demanding that the City house homeless people in hotel rooms BEFORE they are infected + infect 150+ people staying there.
- Coalition on Homelessness (@TheCoalitionSF) April 2, 2020