Sacramento County coronavirus death toll at 62; over 300 active cases, officials say
Sacramento County public health officials on Wednesday reported another death from the coronavirus, the third disclosed this week and 62nd overall since the pandemic began impacting the region three months ago.
The recently announced death happened May 30 in an unincorporated part of the county, according to the county’s COVID-19 dashboard, which was updated shortly before 10:30 a.m. As of Wednesday, 12 have died in unincorporated Sacramento County, 29 in the city of Sacramento, eight in Citrus Heights, seven in Rancho Cordova and three in each of Elk Grove and Folsom.
Two fatalities were reported by the county Monday, and three others were reported last week. Though only reported in the past two weeks, two of the six recent deaths occurred before May 14, county graphs show.
The county’s infection total has risen to 1,642 lab-confirmed cases, with 54 of them reported in the past two days — 36 in Tuesday’s update and 18 more Wednesday. Health officials estimate 1,262 of these infected patients have “likely recovered,” which means there are approximately 318 active cases once accounting for the 62 who have died.
Infection and hospitalization figures have also seen a sharp resurgence after reaching lows of new daily cases and hospitalized patient totals each in single digits during early May following an April spike. State-maintained data broken down by county shows 37 hospitalized and 13 in intensive care units as of Monday, compared with 14 in hospitals and eight in the ICU one week earlier.
In the weeks since then the start of May, the county, along with 50 others across California, has begun gradually implementing the modified reopening of several sectors of the economy.
Countless businesses across virtually all industries had been shut down since Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide stay-at-home order went into effect March 19. Phase 2 businesses such as dine-in restaurant service and shopping malls were given the green light to reopen in most of California by late May. Starting this Friday, Sacramento County will accept the state’s go-ahead to foray into opening bars, gyms, movie theaters and more Phase 3 businesses.
Both the state public health department and local health officials, including Sacramento County Public Health Officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye, expressed concern earlier this week about data showing the county has recorded the highest percentage increase in hospitalization rates of any county in California over the past week with a minimum of 20 hospitalized.
Death, hospitalization and ICU trends are more concerning than the raw case number increase, which health experts say is inevitable as businesses reopen and as testing becomes more readily available.
Kasirye said her contact tracing team has linked many of the recent severe, hospitalized cases to things like family gatherings inside homes, which remain a violation of the state and county health orders. Kasirye said it appears that the recent reopenings of restaurants, stores, barbers and hair salons may have convinced people that the virus risk has gone away, lulling some into a false sense of security as they gather without face coverings or 6 feet of social distance.
Local health officials attributed the case and hospitalization increases to a small cluster of activities, including two large birthday parties held in private homes, one funeral and a church gathering. Church gatherings, with reduced attendance, are now permitted by the state and county; indoor birthday parties are not.
Large protests calling for police reform, which brought between several hundred to a few thousand people within close proximity to each other each night for about two weeks amid nationwide demonstrations following the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, have prompted some concern as well, but it remains too early to tell what impact the protests may have had on COVID-19 spread.
Kasirye told The Sacramento Bee on Tuesday that the gatherings represented important free speech and said the fact they were outdoors reduces the chances of spread. But, because the demonstrations involved a large amount of chanting and shouting, there is a “certain level of nervousness” regarding an outbreak.
Sacramento is now one of 10 counties that the state Department of Public Health has placed on a kind of watch list due to elevated COVID-19 activity.
“Drivers of this include an increase informal and formal gatherings, transmission amongst large families, and workplace exposures in the food industry,” the state wrote, advising the county to bolster its messaging on social distancing, especially to non-English speaking communities, and to increase access to diagnostic testing.
Across California, more than 133,000 positive cases and at least 4,697 fatalities from COVID-19 have been reported, the Department of Public Health said Tuesday.
Latest on rest of Sacramento region
The remainder of the four-county Sacramento region — El Dorado, Placer and Yolo counties — have not reported any coronavirus deaths in the past two weeks.
El Dorado County public health officials report 111 total confirmed cases as of Wednesday, after two infections were reported Monday, and still no confirmed deaths from the virus. A person battling COVID-19 who was in intensive care on Tuesday, was removed from the list of hospitalizations. Of the 111 cases, 24 are active and 87 are recovered, the county says.
Placer County has seen a recent surge in cases, now reporting 314 infections as of Wednesday. Nine people have died, 115 are active cases and 190 have likely recovered. Ten lab-positive patients are in the hospital, with two in the ICU, each count decreasing by one since Monday.
Yolo County reported one new case of COVID-19 on Wednesday, bringing the number of cases there to 227. So far, 24 people have died in the county, with 17 of them connected to Stollwood Convalescent Hospital in Woodland. Yolo does not report recoveries or list current hospitalizations, but one metric on its public health dashboard says that no more than three COVID-19 patients have been hospitalized at any one time in the past 14 days.
World coronavirus numbers
Nearly 7.35 million people have been infected by the coronavirus worldwide as of Wednesday afternoon, according to a database maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
Of those cases, nearly 2 million are from the United States, or about one in four.
The global death toll continues to grow: The virus has now killed more than 415,000 people worldwide, and nearly 113,000 in the United States, the country with the highest death toll. The United Kingdom has the second highest death toll, at about 41,200.
Infections are surging in Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly in Brazil, where about 772,000 have been confirmed.
This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 12:11 PM.
