Note: As of March 2022, the race/ethnicity label changed from Native American to American Indian or Alaska Native to align with the Census.
Note: As of April 16, 2021, this dataset will update daily with a five-day data lag.
Note: As of February 2022, the way race/ethnicity is categorized has been changed. See Section B for additional information.
A. SUMMARY
This dataset includes San Francisco COVID-19 tests by race/ethnicity and by date. This dataset represents the daily count of tests collected, and the breakdown of test results (positive, negative, or indeterminate). Tests in this dataset include all those collected from persons who listed San Francisco as their home address at the time of testing. It also includes tests that were collected by San Francisco providers for persons who were missing a locating address. This dataset does not include tests for residents listing a locating address outside of San Francisco, even if they were tested in San Francisco.
The data were de-duplicated by individual and date, so if a person gets tested multiple times on different dates, all tests will be included in this dataset (on the day each test was collected). If a person tested multiple times on the same date, only one test is included from that date. When there are multiple tests on the same date, a positive result, if one exists, will always be selected as the record for the person. If a PCR and antigen test are taken on the same day, the PCR test will supersede. If a person tests multiple times on the same day and the results are all the same (e.g. all negative or all positive) then the first test done is selected as the record for the person.
The total number of positive test results is not equal to the total number of COVID-19 cases in San Francisco. Each positive test result is investigated by the health department. While the city tries to only report on tests for San Francisco residents (or tests in San Francisco for those with no locating address listed), some test results purported to be for San Francisco residents are actually for people living outside the city. This can be discovered during a case investigation or data quality assurance. In such an instance, the test would be counted as a positive test in the SF data but would not be counted as a COVID-19 case in San Francisco. If a person tests positive for COVID-19 on different dates, they would be included each of those times in the testing data but only one case. To track the number of cases by race/ethnicity, see this dashboard:
https://sf.gov/data/covid-19-population-characteristics#race-or-ethnicity-
When a person gets tested for COVID-19, they may be asked to report information about themselves. One piece of information that might be requested is a person's race and ethnicity. These data are often incomplete in the laboratory and provider reports of the test results sent to the health department. The data can be missing or incomplete for several possible reasons:
• The person was not asked about their race and ethnicity.
• The person was asked, but refused to answer.
• The person answered, but the testing provider did not include the person's answers in the reports.
• The testing provider reported the person's answers in a format that could not be used by the health department.
For any of these reasons, a person's race/ethnicity will be recorded in the dataset as “Unknown.”
B. NOTE ON RACE/ETHNICITY
The different values for Race/Ethnicity in this dataset are "Asian;" "Black or African American;" "Hispanic or Latino/a, all races;" "American Indian or Alaska Native;" "Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander;" "White;" "Multi-racial;" "Other;" and “Unknown."
On February 10, 2022, the method for which race/ethnicity is categorized was updated for the sake of data accuracy, clarity, and stability. The new categorization increases data clarity by emulating the methodology used by the U.S. Census in the