After a year riddled with difficulties in the face of COVID-19, San Francisco Mayor London Breed laid out plans for the city's road to recovery during her 2021 State of the City address on Thursday. She also praised her city's response to the pandemic.
"San Francisco's response to COVID-19 has been hailed as a national model," she said, speaking from the city's COVID Command Center at the Moscone Center. "We have the lowest death rate of any major city in the U.S. and though every life lost is a tragedy, we have saved thousands of lives and now we can see a light at the end of the tunnel."
The mayor stressed the need to reopen the city's schools, which have been closed and operating through remote learning since March 2020.
"Our city can't fully recover until our students are supported and our schools are open, and I will continue to do everything I can to help get our kids back in the classroom," she said.
Breed also highlighted efforts to revive the city in the wake of COVID-19 by pledging $3.5 billion in public infrastructure projects like strengthening the city's seawall, improving public transit and building more police and fire stations as well as mental health facilities.
In addition, Breed said she hoped to help the city's shuttered cultural and music venues, clubs, restaurants, bars and other nightlife venues reopen.
"This terrible pandemic tore our neighborhoods, tore us from our businesses, tore us from one another," she said. "Our diversity, our acceptance, our spirit is what makes us strong and no virus, whether it's named COVID or HIV, is going to take that away. Quite the opposite, it will only make us stronger."
—Bay City News