Coronavirus updates: Vote-by-mail order for all Californians; counties need contact tracers
California now allows curbside pickup for a number of different types of retail businesses, the latest easing of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home order as the coronavirus pandemic continues its deadly spread and devastation of the economy.
Newsom and state Health Director Dr. Mark Ghaly offered a preview Thursday of guidelines and requirements for counties seeking to move further along Phase 2 of his four-phase reopening plan earlier than the rest of the state.
Those rules won’t be formally given to counties until Tuesday, but it was bad news for many of the state’s office spaces, shopping malls and restaurants hoping to reopen soon to dine-in service: None of six counties in the Sacramento region meets all of the criteria, with most falling short in the size of their contact tracing staff.
As of Friday morning, more than 274,000 people worldwide have died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the highly contagious coronavirus, including over 77,000 in the United States. More than 63,000 Californians have had confirmed cases of the coronavirus, and at least 2,612 have died, according to a Bee survey of counties’ health departments. Newsom said during Friday afternoon’s news briefing that 1,898 COVID-19 cases and 81 deaths were reported in the preceding 24 hours.
California has been under Newsom’s stay-at-home order, restricting residents from leaving the house for all but essential purposes — and now, some non-essential curbside retail shopping — since March 19, more than seven weeks.
In that time, unemployment figures have skyrocketed. The governor’s office on Thursday projected a more than $54 billion deficit brought on by the pandemic, and said unemployment in the state could reach 18 percent due to the crisis.
Newsom on Friday said a “jaw-dropping” 4.3 million Californians have filed for unemployment since March 12, and that the true jobless number is likely higher due to a lag in reporting and processing.
“We’re north of 20 percent right now,” he said.
According to statistics released Friday morning by the national Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation’s unemployment rate hit 14.7 percent in April as the country lost 20.5 million jobs. It is the largest drop in raw numbers and by percentage dating back to 1939, when the government began tracking the numbers.
Newsom signs vote-by-mail executive order
Newsom during Friday’s daily news conference announced he has signed an executive order to allow every registered voter in the state to get a mail-in ballot for this November’s election.
The governor said it is still important that physical voting locations be provided for those without easy access to voting by mail.
Secretary of State Alex Padilla says the order makes California the first state in the nation to promise every voter a ballot in response to the coronavirus crisis.
“It’s great for public health, it’s great for voting rights, it’s great for voter turnout,” Padilla said.
What are the requirements for counties to open faster?
The requirements for counties to self-certify their own accelerated reopening plans include, but are not limited to:
“Sacramento County meets the Stage 2 readiness criteria released from the state in all instances with the exception of zero COVID-19 deaths within the past 14 days and the number of contact tracing staff,” county health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson wrote in an email. “We expect to have the appropriate amount of contact tracing staff within the next two weeks.”
El Dorado County has just three full-time contact tracers, and had planned to increase to 10 with rising demand; now, state’s guidelines say it will need 29. Placer County has only six full-time contact tracers on staff, though the county plans to “ramp up quickly” with additional state and county workers, a spokesperson said. The county would need at least 61.
Other nearby counties are closer. Yolo County has 19 contact tracers with plans to add more by the end of May, and would need 34 to meet the state’s requirements. A Bee analysis suggests the Sutter County will need 16 contact tracers and Yuba will need 12, though their current staff sizes were not known.
Newsom has said in recent news briefings that the state has an initial goal of amassing an “army” of 10,000 contact tracers to start with, then boosting that to 20,000 once that mark is reached. That will be accomplished in part by retraining state workers, he has said.
But it is not yet clear how or precisely when that state workforce of tracers might join with counties’ own staffs to increase their numbers.
In terms of death rate, Sacramento and Yolo counties have not gone two weeks without a death since the crisis began. Sacramento County reported five new deaths Monday, another two Thursday and one more on Friday, now standing at a total of 50 dead.
Yuba and Sutter counties have not reported a coronavirus fatality in about a month. Placer County has not reported a death since mid-March. El Dorado County has not reported any COVID-19 deaths.
Inmate at Sacramento jail tests positive, wing locked down
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office says a female inmate, who was housed in the Main Jail’s seventh floor’s west wing and came into the downtown jail at the end of April, has tested positive for the coronavirus. As a result, that wing of the jail is locked down, authorities said Thursday.
The inmate’s test results came back positive Wednesday, the same day she was released from custody. She was released after being given a medical plan, and officials were assured that she had housing.
“She was not exposed to any other inmates,” Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Sgt. Tess Deterding said, adding, “in an abundance of caution, I understand they have locked down that floor — but that’s not because they believe there’s any chance of a spread.”
As recently as Wednesday, Sheriff Scott Jones had boasted on Facebook of having virus-free jails as he called for an easing of stay-at-home orders in a region that has more than 1,500 confirmed infections and at least 75 people who have died from the virus’ effects.
Jones’ office initially released 120 inmates to make room at both jails in the event of an outbreak. A court order later required him to release another 421 inmates. Counting others released on zero bail, Jones estimated 1,100 inmates have been released because of the pandemic.
Statewide, just 4 percent of inmates in California’s largest jails are known to have been given a test for COVID-19, despite jails and prisons across the U.S. becoming hotspots for outbreaks of the virus and amid conditions that make social distancing a challenge, a Sacramento Bee review found.
Roughly 1,600 tests for have been administered in jails located in the 15 California counties that have had the highest number of infections, according to county data and responses from sheriffs offices and local health departments contacted this week by The Bee.
More than one-third of those tests, 667, have come back positive.
Experts say the combination of lagging testing and reporting gaps is masking cases of the disease.
“We have a sort of perfect storm here,” said Aaron Littman, a clinical teaching fellow at UCLA School of Law. “The hardest-hit places are also the hardest to learn about.”
Latest Sacramento retail casualty: Nordstrom at Arden Fair
An anchor store at Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento, Nordstrom will not reopen when the coronavirus ends, mall owner Mark Friedman told The Bee on Wednesday in an exclusive interview.
The move stems from a combination of the coronavirus shutdown and financial difficulties in general for department stores, Friedman said.
The decision will eliminate roughly 375 employees and about $5 million in annual sales taxes to area governments. The Nordstrom store at the Roseville Galleria is not expected to be affected, Friedman said.
Sacramento-area numbers: 78 dead, over 1,500 infected
The four-county Sacramento area has reported a total of 78 COVID-19 fatalities among 1,551 lab-confirmed positive cases.
Sacramento County health officials have reported 1,160 cases of coronavirus and 50 deaths. Seven new infections were reported Friday morning as well as one additional fatality, in the city of Folsom. Of all deaths so far, 25 have come in the city of Sacramento, five in Citrus Heights, four in Rancho Cordova, three in Elk Grove, three in Folsom and 10 in unincorporated parts of the county.
Yolo County reported no new cases and no new deaths from COVID-19 on Thursday or Friday. The county’s total number of COVID-19 cases remained at 172. One new COVID-19 death was reported Wednesday, raising the death toll in the county to 20. Fifteen of those deaths have been reported at Stollwood Convalescent Hospital in Woodland, including at least one employee of the skilled nursing facility, which is part of the St. John’s Retirement Village campus.
Placer County has confirmed 165 cases and eight deaths. The infection total increased by two Thursday and no new cases were reported Friday. No new fatalities have been reported since April 15.
El Dorado County had confirmed 54 COVID-19 cases, reporting no new cases Thursday and Friday. The county has not reported any deaths related to the coronavirus so far. Nineteen have been infected in the El Dorado Hills area, and 20 have been infected in the Lake Tahoe region.
World numbers: Nearly 4 million infected, 270,000 dead
More than 3.9 million people have tested positive for the coronavirus worldwide, and over 274,000 have died, according to a data map maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
The United States continues to have by far the highest death and infection tolls of any nation, surpassing 77,000 COVID-19 fatalities Friday. Of those, more than 26,000 have come in New York, plus another nearly 9,000 in New Jersey, according to Johns Hopkins.
Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Massachusetts have each reported between 3,000 and 5,000 dead from the disease. Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Florida, Louisiana, California and Connecticut all have between 1,000 and 3,000 reported fatalities.
The United Kingdom has surged to more than 31,000 dead among 212,000 confirmed cases; Italy is approaching 30,000 dead among 217,000 cases.
Spain and France are next at roughly 26,000 dead in each country. Brazil is closing in on 10,000 dead, while the Netherlands, Iran, Germany and Belgium all have between 5,000 and 8,500 COVID-19 deaths.
The U.S. has confirmed more than 1 million more positive cases than the next highest nation, according to the Johns Hopkins map. Over 1.28 million cases have been reported across the United States; Spain has reported just over 221,000.
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 May 8, 2020 at 7:45 AM.
