Measuring per-capita rates of infection and death for coronavirus among Sacramento-area cities
Sacramento County as a whole has reported confirmed case numbers and fatality rates that are similar to the rest of California’s rates as of Wednesday, but the cities of Sacramento and Elk Grove currently stand at more than double the state’s reported per capita coronavirus death rate.
Public health officials on Wednesday for the first time released a city-by-city breakdown of cases in Sacramento County, where so far there have been 314 confirmed COVID-19 cases and nine deaths among roughly 1.5 million residents. Those represent rates of about 20.2 infections and 0.6 deaths per 100,000 people, each very similar to the state as a whole.
But the county’s two largest cities, Sacramento at a population just over half a million and Elk Grove with more than 170,000 residents, so far make up all of the reported deaths — six in the state’s capital and three in the latter city just south of it.
The observed death rates for each of Sacramento and Elk Grove, as well as the confirmed cases per capita for Sacramento, are noticeably higher than the statewide rates being reported as of Wednesday. While California, the nation’s most populous state with nearly 40 million people, so far has reported about 0.5 deaths per 100,000 residents, Elk Grove’s rate is 1.7 and Sacramento’s rate is 1.2, The Sacramento Bee calculated.
Sacramento is currently reporting 33.8 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents and Elk Grove had 19.1 per 100,000, The Bee calculated. Statewide, where individual county public health departments have reported a total of nearly 8,600 confirmed infections, the rate for California is 21.7 per 100,000.
The city of Sacramento has reported 172 total cases among 508,000 people, while Elk Grove has recorded 33 among 173,000 as of 1 p.m. Unincorporated parts of the county, where another 600,000 reside, had just 53 reported cases. The suburban cities of Citrus Heights, Folsom and Rancho Cordova had 12, seven and 18 cases, respectively, for populations ranging from 75,000 to 88,000. Galt had just three confirmed cases among 26,000 residents. Isleton, population 848, had none.
Sacramento County acknowledged in a statement accompanying Wednesday’s numbers that officials have learned approximately one-third of the confirmed cases countywide — which would be roughly 100 of them — “are linked to gatherings related to churches.”
Speaking earlier Wednesday morning, county health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson said that 24 of the county’s coronavirus cases have been linked to one church that continues in-person congregations, as The Bee reported. He declined to name the church or say where it is located.
Beilenson said he is pleading for churches and prayer groups to hold meetings via Zoom, Skype or some other virtual platform rather than in person.
“Sacramento County is urging – and, not just because the Public Health Order calls for it – all residents, from all faiths and all backgrounds to stay home – lives in our communities depend on it,” the county health department said in a statement.
The data could be misleading for several reasons. The most recently released figures are imperfect, the county points out; the total of cases given for each city and for unincorporated parts of the county add up to 298 rather than 314, because addresses were not available for 16 of the confirmed cases within the county, according to a news release.
And the numbers could be reflective of differences in testing for the virus, which jurisdictions around the U.S. and within California are scrambling to improve in terms of speed and availability, with differing results. Sacramento, for instance, joined a handful of Bay Area counties included in Google sister company Verily’s Project Baseline, which is providing free drive-up tests after an online screening process.
Yolo County city numbers released
Yolo County also released city-by-city breakdowns of the virus’ spread on Wednesday, using a new dashboard.
Yolo health officials are reporting 28 cases and one death among its 220,000 people, rates of 12.7 infections and 0.5 deaths per 100,000.
The per-capita rates were highest in West Sacramento, where the majority of cases have been confirmed and the sole fatality from COVID-19 was reported. That city had an infection rate of 26.1 per 100,000 residents, more than double its the next highest rate in Davis of 11.5 per 100,000.
Additionally, in a pandemic, per capita rates change quickly and are not an indication of growth, but give a snapshot of where the disease is right now.
“While the case increase was expected, what was not is Sacramento County Public Health’s discovery that approximately one-third of the confirmed cases are linked to gatherings related to churches,” the county news release said.
The new countywide figures represent an increase of 90 reported cases in 24 hours, from 224 to 314, and two additional deaths in that span.
Rates given thus far by neighboring Placer and El Dorado county health departments track more closely with the state’s overall confirmed case and death rates per 100,000, though both have significantly smaller sample sizes of each than the county or city of Sacramento.
In Placer County, population about 400,000, 78 confirmed cases have been reported and two have died (rates of 19.6 and 0.5 per 100,000, respectively). In El Dorado County, just 18 cases (19.6 per 100,000 people) and no deaths have been reported among more than 190,000 residents.
It is also worth noting that as a more urban center with a denser population than the more rural surrounding areas, one would expect Sacramento to have higher infection and death rates than those three counties due to the highly contagious nature of the virus.
Nationwide, the United States had more than 206,000 confirmed cases among 328 million people, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University, and over 4,500 have died as of 2 p.m. Wednesday.
Those figures represent per capita rates of 62 infections and 1.4 deaths per 100,000 people. New York state, and within it densely populated New York City, have represented COVID-19’s epicenter for the United States. The state has reported more than 83,000 cases and close to 2,000 fatalities, more than 40 percent of the country’s total death toll as of Wednesday afternoon.
This story was originally published April 1, 2020 at 2:02 PM.
