Coronavirus updates: 18 dead in Sacramento County as US nears 11,000 fatalities
Health experts and government leaders warn the next two weeks will be critically important and the toughest yet for the United States as it faces the coronavirus pandemic, but in California and many other states, the peak of the crisis is still several weeks away.
Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Sunday called this week America’s “Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment” in facing the highly contagious virus, which causes the disease known as COVID-19. As of Monday, the coronavirus had killed more people across the U.S. than both Pearl Harbor and September 11 combined.
Confirmed cases surpassed 1.3 million worldwide as of Monday evening, with more than 74,000 fatalities reported, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University. More than 367,000 infections and over 10,000 deaths have come in the United States.
“We are struggling to get it under control, and that’s the issue that’s at hand right now,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, part of the White House coronavirus task force, said on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday.
In a separate Sunday appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Adams said the timeline and the forecast to flatten the curve of the virus depend on people isolating themselves.
California, which on March 19 became the first to implement a statewide stay-at-home or shelter-in-place mandate in an unprecedented effort to flatten the pandemic’s growth curve to a level its hospital systems can handle, is hopeful that this early action will limit the death toll for the most populous state.
As of Monday, there were at least 16,181 confirmed cases and 383 coronavirus deaths in California, according to a Sacramento Bee survey of figures released independently by county public health departments.
Gov. Gavin Newsom early Monday afternoon announced the state Department of Public Health has confirmed more than 14,000 positive cases and 343 COVID-19 fatalities as of Sunday. More than 2,500 people have been hospitalized, with 1,085 of them in intensive care units, Newsom said.
Two more deaths reported in Sacramento County
Public health officials in a Monday morning update to the COVID-19 webpage announced two more deaths and an increase of 20 confirmed cases, for totals of 18 dead and 462 infected across Sacramento County.
The county now maintains a city-by-city breakdown of cases and fatalities for which an address has been confirmed by health officials, but the locations of the two most recent deaths were not known.
County officials continue to say that all who have died were either age 65 or older, or had “underlying health conditions.”
Newsom speaks at Sleep Train Arena, hospital bed surge site
The governor, during a news conference at the former Kings home venue in Sacramento’s Natomas area, said Sleep Train Arena will be used as a bed site with capacity for 400 coronavirus patients with mild to moderate symptoms. He said the arena will reopen for that purpose in two weeks.
Newsom said those beds are among the 50,000 additional the state has projected to need as Phase One of the mitigation strategy to handle surges of COVID-19 patients. About 30,000 of those beds are intended to be added at existing hospital sites, while the remaining 20,000 beds will make use of makeshift sites like Sleep Train, where construction crews on Monday were working to ready the arena.
Newsom also on Monday said that the nearly 82,000 recently retired medical workers have signed up for the California Health Corps, which was announced last week.
Contra Costa County senior living facility
Officials say there are 49 confirmed COVID-19 cases among residents and employees at Orinda Care Center, a Contra Costa County senior living facility, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The skilled nursing facility houses 45 elderly residents, Contra Costa Health Services officials said Friday in a news release. The health agency began investigating last week after two staff members at the facility sought medical care, which was followed by positive test results for those workers and two residents.
As of Monday morning, there were 417 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Contra Costa County, and seven people have died due to complications from the respiratory disease.
When are California’s peaks of the coronavirus expected?
Widely cited projections from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation as recently as last Wednesday showed California’s peak of new COVID-19 cases coming April 26.
But the model, which can fluctuate heavily in either direction as new data and information become available and as even small changes can change the exponential curve, as of Monday morning shows the peak instead coming sooner and flatter: New cases are shown peaking around April 15, with death rates maxing out two days later on April 17 at 70 daily fatalities.
However, Newsom and other health officials say the peak in coronavirus activity could stretch out over multiple weeks, into mid-May or later, and different parts of the state could peak at different times.
The institute now forecasts just 1,783 Californians will die in the next several weeks, with fatalities slowing considerably by mid-May. That’s nearly one-third of the more than 5,000 statewide deaths that had been predicted by the same model last week.
But researchers suggested California’s stay-home mandate may have to continue for about a month after the peak hits to avoid a resurgence that re-elevates that death total.
“Instead of becoming a peak, it can become a roller coaster ride,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley School of Public Health.
In Sacramento County, public health director Dr. Peter Beilenson said the biggest influx of cases requiring hospitalization is expected in late April, according to recent computer models. Area hospitals can handle what they expect to be up to 600 cases at a time, but they will very likely need more ventilators, he said.
Placer County health director Dr. Aimee Sisson said projections have been so varied, due in part to a lack of widespread testing, that a peak could come any time between May and August, she said.
“We are OK right now,” Sisson said. “If we have a real healthcare surge, though, we are going to have shortages.”
In the remainder of Sacramento’s four-county region, neither Yolo nor El Dorado county health officials are forecasting when a peak may come.
California loaning ventilators to national stockpile
Newsom on Monday morning announced that California will be loaning 500 state-owned ventilators to the Strategic National Stockpile.
“California is stepping up to help our fellow Americans in New York and across the country who are being impacted the hardest right now by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Newsom said in a statement. “We still have a long road ahead of us in the Golden State – and we’re aggressively preparing for a surge – but we can’t turn our back on Americans whose lives depend on having a ventilator now.
Latest Sacramento numbers: 22 dead across the region
As of 10:30 a.m. Monday, the four-county Sacramento region reported a total of 643 cases and 22 deaths. One week ago, on March 30, there were 320 infections and 10 dead, according to the counties’ public health departments. Nine days before that, on March 21, authorities reported 83 cases and five dead.
The city and county of Sacramento each have had a significant portion of local fatalities: officials on Sunday disclosed six new deaths across the county and announced two more Monday for a total of 18, and updated the capital city’s death toll on Sunday to 10. Citrus Heights has suffered its first fatality; Elk Grove stands at three; one has died in an unincorporated area of Sacramento County; and the location has not been confirmed for three of the deaths.
As of Monday afternoon, Sacramento County had confirmed 462 cases and 18 deaths; Placer County reported 106 cases including three deaths; Yolo County had 50 cases and one death; and in El Dorado County, 25 have been infected and no fatalities have been reported.
What is the status of Stanford’s antibody testing?
Newsom during a Saturday news conference said Stanford University was “hours” away from federal approval on a blood immunity test, which could determine whether a person has developed antibodies to the virus.
In theory, those who develop immunity may be able to safely interact with others without catching or spreading it.
The test will begin to be used on Californians in the coming week, said Dr. Charity Dean, assistant director at the California Department of Public Health. The exact timeline for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval remains unclear.
The Stanford Daily reported that more than 3,200 people in Santa Clara County took part in the antibody test study on Friday and Saturday, with the results expected to be released publicly within a week. Data on immunity rates could prove critical in developing better treatment of the highly contagious virus.
In terms of so-called traditional testing — to see if one is infected, not whether they are immune — Newsom on Saturday said the state has dramatically reduced its backlog. Of 127,000 tests performed, only 13,000 results were pending, down from 60,000 pending tests a day earlier, the governor said.
But for a state of 40 million people, officials still look to greatly increase testing availability. Ability to diagnose Californians en masse remains a key step in assessing the pandemic’s risk factor, a necessary element in being able to determine when life might be able to return to some semblance of normal.
To wear a mask or not to wear a mask?
Last week, California public health officials released guidance for using cloth face coverings to limit coronavirus exposure and spread. Both Sacramento and Placer counties then began recommending that residents wear a cloth face covering when leaving the house.
Experts clarify that a mask will do little to protect the wearer from catching the virus, but can help prevent those who have the virus from spreading it to others, which is important given that many carriers may be asymptomatic.
“The use of cloth face coverings could reduce the transmission of COVID-19 by individuals who do not have symptoms and may reinforce physical distancing,” a section on masks found on the state Department of Public Health website reads. “Public health officials also caution that face coverings may increase risk if users reduce their use of strong defenses such as physical distancing and frequent hand washing.”
Authorities have also asked that residents not purchase medical-grade masks, which are needed by hospital staff as they deal with coronavirus patients.
If you are making your own cloth covering, it is important to make one has multiple layers of fabric, is comfortable but snug and can allow you to breathe unimpaired.
And if you are going to wear one, wear it properly: no gaps between your face and the mask, no holes or tears and no touching of the mask with unclean hands.
Worldwide totals: Where are the coronavirus hotspots?
In the United States, New York State and New York City remain major epicenters. The state had confirmed more than 131,000 of the nation’s 367,000 infection total as of Monday eveing, according to Johns Hopkins University; New York’s figure was more than that of all countries except the U.S., Spain and Italy. More than 4,700 have died statewide, with nearly 3,500 fatalities in New York City.
Neighboring New Jersey has reported nearly 41,000 infections and over 1,000 deaths. Michigan has one of the highest death rates within the United States, at 727 dead among 17,221 confirmed cases, according to the Johns Hopkins map.
Illinois, Pennsylvania, Florida, Massachusetts, Louisiana and California all had confirmed between 12,000 and about 15,000 COVID-19 cases, per Johns Hopkins, with death tolls ranging from 179 (Pennsylvania) to 512 (Louisiana).
Globally, the death toll remains highest in Italy, where more than 16,500 people had died as of early Monday among 132,547 confirmed infections. Spain has reported over 13,000 deaths and with more than 136,000 recently surpassed Italy for total infections, according to Johns Hopkins. Nearly 9,000 have died in France, where almost 99,000 cases have been confirmed. Reported infection totals are heavily dependent on the testing availability within each country.
More than 5,300 have died in the United Kingdom with more than 52,000 total confirmed cases. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted into a hospital over the weekend after testing positive for COVID-19 and was reportedly moved into an intensive care unit Monday after his symptoms worsened.
Iran has reported 60,000-plus cases and more than 3,700 deaths. Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands all had between 1,500 and 2,000 reported deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins map.
The initial epicenter of the virus, China’s Hubei province, has reported 3,200 fatalities. Reported deaths and infections have stalled across China in recent weeks.
What is COVID-19? How is the coronavirus spread?
Coronavirus is spread through contact between people within 6 feet of each other, especially through coughing and sneezing that expels respiratory droplets that land in the mouths or noses of people nearby. The CDC says it’s possible to catch the disease COVID-19 by touching something that has the virus on it, and then touching your own face, “but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”
Symptoms of the virus that causes COVID-19 include fever, cough and shortness of breath, which may occur two days to two weeks after exposure. Most develop only mild symptoms, but some people develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia, which can be fatal. The disease is especially dangerous to the elderly and others with weaker immune systems.
This story was originally published April 6, 2020 at 8:05 AM.
