Sacramento County considers mask order as it reports spike in coronavirus cases
Sacramento County officials, disclosing four new deaths and 67 fresh cases of the coronavirus, said Wednesday they might require residents to wear masks inside stores and other businesses as an added precaution.
It marked the largest one-day increase since early May in fatalities as well as confirmed cases of COVID-19.
County officials said they believe the increase in cases is being driven by private gatherings, such as birthday parties, as well as a major leap in the amount of tests being conducted.
Nonetheless, they told The Sacramento Bee they’re now considering requiring customers to wear masks in restaurants, bars, malls and other indoor commercial settings – instead of merely recommending they do so. Customers could remove masks to eat.
“We’re looking at ways to keep risk down,” said Dr. Peter Beilenson, the county’s health services director.
In the latest snapshot of the pandemic, Sacramento County public health officials reported 67 total fatalities and 1,895 lab-positive cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the highly contagious virus. Sacramento County had not reported four or more deaths in a single day since May 4, when five deaths were reported, and had not disclosed that many new cases since April 14.
The county health department’s online dashboard, which now sorts new cases by “episode date” — the emergence of the virus according to the earliest known out of the dates for onset, diagnosis date, specimen collection date or death — shows that 136 new cases emerged over the four-day stretch from June 8-11, nearly six times more than emerged the first four days of May.
June 8 marked exactly two weeks after Memorial Day, when public health officials expressed concern that large gatherings over the three-day holiday weekend may have led to a surge that would show itself in test results within about two weeks.
The trends indicate a significant spike in coronavirus activity, with case increases so far in June about in line with the previous spike from late March to mid-April, and deaths resuming at a steady pace after an apparent 11-day break in mid-May.
Though the increased case total can be partially attributed to more widely available testing, hospitalization rates also surged at an alarming enough rate last week that Sacramento County was briefly placed on a state “watch” list monitoring elevated coronavirus activity.
But Beilenson said the latest results show only 37 hospitalizations and 13 people placed in intensive care units because of coronavirus infections. While they’re higher than they were last month, the hospitalization and ICU numbers have remained fairly stable in the past week or so. That’s an indication that the county isn’t witnessing a major surge in the number of people getting seriously ill.
Beilenson said the county hasn’t yet decided whether to order people to wear masks indoors when they visit restaurants and other businesses. But the medical evidence is increasingly pointing to the benefits of facial coverings. “They’re more effective than people originally thought,” he said.
As a practical matter, “with 1.5 million people, you can’t really enforce it,” he acknowledged. But making facial coverings an order, instead of a strong recommendation, would likely prompt more people to don masks.
Where are masks required?
Currently, masks are required for store clerks, waiters and waitresses and other business employees, but not for customers. Orange County briefly required masks to be worn in public, but now strongly recommends the practice. The former health director resigned after receiving death threats for issuing the mask requirement order.
Yolo County is the only county in the Sacramento region that requires masks and face coverings in public, with a few exceptions such as while walking, hiking or exercising outdoors.
Since late May, Sacramento County has been among the now-52 counties allowed to accelerate within Phase 2 and Phase 3 of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s gradual reopening plan, permitting businesses such as dine-in restaurants, barbershops and retail stores to open in May while movie theaters, bars, gyms, zoos and more were allowed to open last Friday.
Beilenson and Sacramento County public health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye have said contact tracing investigations have linked clusters of new cases to large gatherings like private birthday parties in people’s homes, which remain prohibited under state and county health orders, where attendees have not followed social distancing protocols.
Beilenson said there appears to be an indirect link between businesses reopening and the increase in cases: As residents see stores and restaurants reopening, they tend to become more relaxed about social distancing in other settings.
The county also cited the recent protests in Sacramento over the in-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“We also have a few confirmed cases in which we know they attended the recent protests,” county spokeswoman Janna Haynes said in an emailed statement Wednesday. The county believes it will be several more days, given the incubation period of the virus, before the full impact of the protests is known.
Sacramento-region COVID-19 numbers: Nearly 2,850 infected
The state Department of Public Health, in its own COVID-19 dashboard last updated Tuesday, has noted a surge in hospitalizations and ICU cases in Sacramento County. From a low of just seven patients hospitalized with the virus on May 21 and 19 as late as June 3, that figure soared to 35 by June 5. The graph shows hospitalizations peaking at 39 on June 11, dropping to 28 by June 13 and returning back to 36 as of Tuesday’s update.
The four-county Sacramento area has reached 100 COVID-19 deaths — 67 in Sacramento County, 24 in Yolo County, nine in Placer County and none yet reported in El Dorado County — and 2,848 cases.
Placer County has also seen a recent surge in cases. Health officials in updates Wednesday and Tuesday added 21 new cases, tied with each other for the highest since the pandemic began, for a new total of 432 positive cases. Nine people have died in the county so far, and as of Wednesday, seven patients were hospitalized with two in the ICU.
Yolo County on Wednesday afternoon reported 26 new cases of the coronavirus, its highest daily increase. The previous highest increase in a day was 17 cases reported April 6. Countywide, 291 people have tested positive for coronavirus. The county’s death toll remains at 24. At least 17 of these deaths have been connected to an outbreak at Stollwood Convalescent Hospital in Woodland.
El Dorado County has maintained consistently low infection rates and is one of the few counties in California with no reported COVID-19 deaths. With three new cases reported Wednesday, 121 people have been infected, 58 of them from the Lake Tahoe region. The County has reported 99 recoveries and no current hospitalizations.
Just outside the capital region, Sutter County, which has also seen relatively low numbers, has reported 23 cases since Thursday, including three new cases Wednesday, bringing the total to 72. Three people have died there. In Yuba County, officials reported one case new case Wednesday. The county has reported 37 cases and one death.
Hospitalization rate rises statewide
Between Sunday and Tuesday, the total number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients throughout California soared more than 10 percent, from 3,103 to 3,421, according to state data. The ICU rate grew about 5 percent, from 1,053 to 1,109.
More than 5,200 have died of COVID-19 in California out of over 157,000 positive cases, according to the state Department of Public Health.
California reported 87 deaths between Monday and Tuesday’s updates, the biggest one-day increase since June 10, when 105 new coronavirus deaths were reported.
The global death toll for COVID-19 is approaching 450,000, with more than 117,000 deaths coming in the United States, which accounts for more than 2.1 million of the world’s 8.2 million lab-confirmed cases, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that four or more deaths had not been reported by Sacramento County since April. The county reported five deaths on May 4.
This story was originally published June 17, 2020 at 12:18 PM.
