COVID-19

UCSF’s Environmental Impact Report ignores the effect of COVID-19 .

UCSF has chosen to forge ahead without addressing the impact of COVID-19, stating in its draft EIR that the effects of COVID-19 “cannot be predicted without speculation.” However there are some obvious implications of the pandemic on this project that UCSF did not address, specifically: (1) the proposed increase in campus population of approximately 8000 persons per day depends on the ability to social distance both on campus and on public transportation, (2) the effects of airborne pollutants on respiratory health in the setting of a virus that targets the lungs, (3) how the pandemic might dramatically shift priorities in medical center design and operations, and (4) the broader impact of how COVID-19 will affect medicine and healthcare delivery in the future.

COVID-19 has been, and continues to be, the defining event of this generation. It will have far reaching impacts not just on healthcare provision and medical research, but on every aspect of urban planning. The CPHP relies on pre-COVID-19 healthcare, population, economic, and workplace data that should be carefully reconsidered in the face of so much new uncertainty. The potential financial and operational implications of healthcare delivery in the post-COVID era, as well as political pressure to re-envision the entire healthcare system, are huge. The imperative in a post-COVID-19 world is to reduce population density in indoor environments, but UCSF’s plan goes in the opposite direction. Why does UCSF want charge ahead with a multi-billion dollar decades-long hospital project in this scenario?