September 2024 SF Candidate Forum Responses Re: Public Health, COVID-19, and Mask Bans
Senior and Disability Action and California Alliance for Retired Americans (CARA) also co-hosted a Candidate Forum on September 12th, 2024. A written questionnaire was sent to all candidates running for San Francisco Board of Supervisors and Mayor. Candidates also answered questions submitted by the public at our live forum in San Francisco.
We have compiled all responses about public health and airborne illness prevention below.
Table of contents:
You can also view responses to the October 2024 survey SDA and our partners sent to County Board of Supervisors, State Assembly, State Senate, and US Congress and Senate candidates across 9 counties in the Bay Area.
Written questionnaire responses about COVID-19 and public health issues:
Aaron Peskin for Mayor Questionnaire:
Since the spread of COVID, the use of face masks has been an effective way to ensure the safety of our community. Do you support requiring face masks in healthcare facilities and other essential places while COVID puts seniors and people with disabilities at high risk of harm?
I’ve always relied on the guidance of experts and public health officials in navigating our city’s COVID response, and will continue to do so as mayor. During the pandemic, I worked with Chinese Hospital, City and State public health officials, and the Chinatown community to distribute thousands and thousands of masks and other PPE to our residents (many of whom are seniors) living in SRO apartments. I’m proud to say that despite congregate living conditions, Chinatown beat the odds and had one of the lowest transmission rates in the city. As mayor, I will build on these successes and the lessons we’ve learned to keep vulnerable San Franciscans safe.
Jackie Fielder for District 9 Supervisor Questionnaire:
Since the spread of COVID, the use of face masks has been an effective way to ensure the safety of our community. Do you support requiring face masks in healthcare facilities and other essential places while COVID puts seniors and people with disabilities at high risk of harm?
Absolutely.
Bilal Mahmood for District 5 Supervisor Questionnaire:
Since the spread of COVID, the use of face masks has been an effective way to ensure the safety of our community. Do you support requiring face masks in healthcare facilities and other essential places while COVID puts seniors and people with disabilities at high risk of harm?
Yes
Dean Preston For District 5 Supervisor Questionnaire:
Since the spread of COVID, the use of face masks has been an effective way to ensure the safety of our community. Do you support requiring face masks in healthcare facilities and other essential places while COVID puts seniors and people with disabilities at high risk of harm?
Yes.
Connie Chan for District 1 Supervisor Questionnaire:
Since the spread of COVID, the use of face masks has been an effective way to ensure the safety of our community. Do you support requiring face masks in healthcare facilities and other essential places while COVID puts seniors and people with disabilities at high risk of harm?
Yes.
Questions answered by candidates live at the SDA and CARA Candidate Forum on September 12th, 2024
Note: Audience members were allowed to ask 3 questions per candidate. Not all candidates present received questions about COVID-19 and public health issues.
Daniel Lurie:
Introduction: I'm Daniel Lurie. I have not done a speech with a mask on yet. So this is a first.
Question: Will you work on requiring masking in healthcare settings for both the patient and the provider?
Answer: I'm – you stay close, because I’m going to be short on this answer, and I want to get through as many questions – I’m going to lean on healthcare professionals to determine that. I am going to hire great people around me. I am not a healthcare professional. I will lean on healthcare professionals. I'm happy to be wearing a mask today to make sure everybody feels safe and keeps everybody safe. So I'm committed to doing what the professionals tell us we should be doing.
Jackie Fielder:
Question: Will you work on requiring masking in healthcare settings for both patients and providers?
Answer: Absolutely. The pandemic is not over. There are new strains, seemingly every single month, and we have to look out for folks that are the most vulnerable in our community, and this makes entire sense, to require masks in public health settings.
Marjan Philhour:
Question: I’m very concerned about mask bans that are being considered in California and have recently passed in North Carolina; Nassau County, New York. These bans enlarge us, and are you willing to take a proactive stand against mask bans?
Answer: You know, masks saved my mother-in-law's life. Masks kept my family and I healthy in our family. We go to the doctor a lot, and they're wearing masks, no matter what you’re doing, you know, at Kaiser, for the most part. I think that we need to look – you know, we’re living in a post-Covid world where we need to reassess what used to be. Because our health– the dangers and the challenges we're facing, I think it's important to be more proactive.
I think that it's a real luxury for people who just say, “I don’t need a booster,” “I don't need a vaccine,” “I don't need a mask,” well, not everybody is that lucky! And I think it's very risky. And the last thing that we should be doing, and can't afford to do, is – is embrace risky policy with regard to our seniors and those who are severely immunocompromised. So I think it's really important to be responsible.
One of the things I noticed during the pandemic: you know, dentists – you know, we had – my son's friends' parents are dentists. And they actually were brought in to put in best practices, because a lot of these dentists already were wearing masks, and they all already had those shields prior to Covid, and they were called upon during that time to employ those practices across the board. So I do support that.
Connie Chan:
Question: I’m very concerned about mask bans. These are being considered in Los Angeles and have recently passed in North Carolina, New York’s county [sic]. Are you willing to take a productive [sic] stand against mask bans?
Answer: Oh. I – look. Our healthcare facilities, our senior facilities, everyone should do our due diligence and – including our skilled nursing homes. In all these facilities, not just for our seniors, but people with immune system, compromising immune systems, we need to make sure that these continue to be welcoming and inclusive space, and that putting on mask is what is – so that we can make that environment inclusive and welcoming is what we must do, so I’m absolutely supportive of continuing to encourage people to put on their mask so that we can provide a welcoming and inclusive space for everyone, not just our seniors. Including those that may have a compromising immune system.
Dean Preston:
Question: The San Francisco Department of Public Health has removed the masking requirement. Will you make a statement in favor of universal masking in healthcare?
Answer: Yeah, absolutely. That, for me, is a no-brainer. And I understand there's a lot of right-wing pressure to have mask bans, a lot of people who want to deny science and deny public health realities. Especially at a time where we're actually seeing surging Covid rates, it is – it just makes sense, especially in healthcare facilities, to have masking. And I would just say more generally, for those of us in leadership: in San Francisco, we did pretty well, all of us, the entire board of supervisors, mayor, of coming together during the pandemic to embrace science, to follow public health recommendations. And we shouldn't retreat from that. And even as – as it becomes sort of less of a popular, populist issue, I think we need to resist the push toward somehow vilifying something as basic as wearing a mask. So I think it’s absolutely obvious that in any kind of health care facilities, any kind of environments where you have seniors and folks who may be immune compromised, that we continue with masking in those settings.
Bilal Mahmood:
Question: The San Francisco Department of Public Health removed the masking requirement. Will you make a statement in favor of universal masking in health care?
Answer: Absolutely masking has been so and saving so many lives over the pandemic. It made sure that my family didn't get Covid for many years because they masked consistently. If they had lived in a city that had prohibited them from wearing a mask in the hospital, in their home, and public spaces, as we saw across the country, suffice to say, I don't know if they would still be here with us. And that is why it's important to maintain those bans. But we also have to keep boosting the infrastructure to protect against the next pandemic. We still don't have forward and backward contact tracing to detect the next pandemic and prevent it. We don't have enough nurses and mental health workers to support the understaffed nurses in our hospitals and our primary care facilities. We are 20% under staffed. I will focus and laser focus on making sure that we're cutting our bureaucracy to ensure that we hire the nurses of the mental health workers that we need to support our seniors and our at risk youth and the people who are coming into our hospitals. That will be my priority from day one, and I'll continue to maintain that.
Aaron Peskin:
Question: Will you bring back remote public comments so that seniors and disabled people can participate easily?
Answer: Thank you for that question, Ms. McCoy. For those of you who will remember our traumatic last five years, in the old days, before the pandemic, there was no such thing as remote public comment, and one day we had that hard lockdown on March 17 of 2020. And it turned out they had this thing called Zoom. And we seamlessly transitioned and we were holding the Board of Supervisors meetings from our bedrooms and living rooms. And members of the public were able to participate and make public comment. And when the pandemic was declared over, we had a choice to make. And some of my colleagues wanted to end remote public comment. And I said no. We are the people's house. We must continue remote public comment. Until, and with a heavy heart, we were bombed by racist, antisemitic, misogynistic public comment, and we took a time-out. And I think that time is now behind us. And I am ready to restore remote public comment.