San Francisco Mayor London Breed said the shelter-in-place order, which was just extended to May 3, could be extended even further

• The San Francisco Bay Area shelter-in-place order could get extended past May 3.
• The news comes two days after officials throughout the region announced the order, which was originally expected to end on April 7, would instead expire on May 3.
• The number of confirmed cases in the Bay Area continue to rise, but some health experts say the situation is nowhere near as dire as other parts of the US thanks to early social distancing measures.
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The San Francisco Bay Area's shelter-in-place order could get extended past May, San Francisco Mayor London Breed said at a Wednesday press conference.

"The likelihood that this May 3 date will be extended is possible," Breed told a news conference according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The news comes two days after city officials across the region announced that the directive would be extended from April 7 to May 3. New restrictions were announced as well, such as the closure of dog parks, public picnic areas, and playgrounds.

The order originally went into effect across six Bay Area counties on March 17. There are currently at least 2,645 confirmed cases in the region.

While the number of confirmed cases in the Bay Area, including San Francisco, continues to climb, the trajectory of the virus's spread isn't as aggressive in the region as it is elsewhere in the US. And some local health experts believe it's because of the early measures taken by officials.

The Bay Area was the first region in the US to implement an order that directed residents to stay in their homes. The state of California followed just days later. Since then, other parts of the US that have enforced some kind of stay-at-home order are looking to the region as a model for how quickly the outbreak could be contained - and when life could return to normal.

But Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the city's health department, said it's too early to tell if the region's early social distancing policy is working.

"...At this stage of the game, there are still plausible scenarios that our health care system could be brought to the brink and even overwhelmed," Colfax said, according to the Chronicle.

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