Mayor Breed wasn't wearing a mask. Admit it, neither are you.

The real news is that San Francisco's COVID response has been a success

As you have probably noticed, Mayor London Breed has hit the national news.

It’s everyone from CNN to the New York Post to the Los Angeles Times. Fox News has her on a continuous news loop. Last week the Washington Post weighed in.

In each, the headline is some variation of CNN’s: “San Francisco Mayor Breed Spotted Defying Her Own Mask Guideline.”

It is easy to see where this is headed. The quick and simple political media calculation is that this is another “French Laundry situation,” where Gov. Gavin Newsom got caught breaking his own rules against gathering.

Breed is portrayed as another entitled Left Coast politician who thinks she’s above the rules. The phrase that has caught on is: “Rules for thee, but not for me.”

Breed has botched the response, getting defensive and making an unfortunate reference to the “fun police.” And we will have some thoughts about that in a minute.

But first a couple of points:

Do you know who else wasn’t wearing a mask at that Tenderloin jazz club when Breed was spotted?

Everyone.

In fact, Mariecar Mendoza, the Chronicle reporter who broke the story with a video at the club, was admittedly maskless. Her boss, editor-in-chief Emilio Garcia-Ruiz felt the need to issue a statement saying Mendoza “wore a mask at times . . . but, like Breed, was not wearing a mask during the interview.”

Rules for thee, but not for me indeed.

As Garcia-Ruiz added, “In our work, we hold others to account for their behavior and we have a responsibility to follow the same rules.”

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Here’s the reality. What happened at the Black Cat Club is where San Francisco is right now on night life. We wear a mask to the door, show our vaccination card and ID, go to a table, take off the mask and don’t put it on again until time to leave.

Last weekend we went to dinner in the Mission. We were glad we took a Lyft, because traffic was nuts and parking would have been impossible.

We stepped out on Valencia Street and into a rolling party. The sidewalks were jammed with people, some wearing masks, some not.

The upscale restaurant was packed, both the parklet and indoors. We showed our vax cards and ID and went inside. Every table was full.

“Wow, you’re busy,” I said to the waitress.

She shrugged. “It’s Friday night.”

And here is the important part.

What price is San Francisco paying for such wanton behavior? For gathering in groups, albeit after proof of full vaccinations and wearing masks to enter? As people use the “take the mask off for eating and drinking” loophole, have cases spiked?

Absolutely not.

The daily number of COVID cases is around 100 a day, according to the city’s data, which down over two-thirds from January. And this month only 22 of those required intensive care hospitalization. This in a population of over 875,000 people.

The city continues to have a low rate of deaths from the virus, going all the way back to September of last year. That’s when this Chronicle story announced San Francisco had the lowest death rate from COVID of any major American city. This month, according to the city’s data base, there have been three.

This week data from a Johns Hopkins survey found that California has the lowest COVID-19 case rate in the United States.

Meanwhile, local school reopening continues to be safe and encouraging. After the first three weeks after reopening, the San Francisco Department of Public Health reported 227 COVID cases out of 52,000 students and staff. The report says the “vast majority” of cases were not contracted at school. And no San Francisco student has been ill enough to be hospitalized.

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Which is what Mayor Breed’s response to the questions about the video should have been. Instead, she got defensive and complained about the “fun police,” which makes it sound as if she’s diminishing the pandemic.

What she should highlight is San Francisco is a COVID success story. Suppose you live in Florida or Mississippi or somewhere where the ICU beds are full, and friends and family are dying of COVID. Wouldn’t you look at California, and San Francisco specifically, and say, “What are they doing that we aren’t?”

Well, Mayor Breed was first in the country to mandate vaccination checks before going indoors to a restaurant, gym or concert. She required all city employees to be vaccinated and nearly three-fourths of all residents already are. Masks ARE worn when shopping at a store, taking public transit or entering a public building.

And it all seems to be working. Instead of playing media gotcha, there should be at least some focus on the fact that we’re getting this right. And because we are, people are allowed the freedom to take off their mask once the room has been checked for vaccinated people and they sit down.

This fuss will pass, of course. The chattering class will be on to the next case of political entitlement. A controversy like this would only have legs if Breed were pushing an agenda that is making the pandemic worse. Instead it’s improving.

Look at Newsom. A few months ago his political career was potentially over. He was in a recall with a knife’s edge of a lead. It was entirely possible, our media pundits told us, that Newsom could lose the recall and be out.

Instead he won big. And this week, right on cue, the L.A. Times weighed in:

“After the recall,” the headline asked, “is the White House next for Newsom?”

Contact C.W. Nevius at cwnevius@gmail.com. Suggestions and compliments cheerfully accepted. Criticism not so much. Twitter: @cwnevius