Sacramento County near 2,000 COVID-19 cases as Placer, Yolo break daily infection records
Confirmed cases of the coronavirus remain on the rise in the capital region, a trend that Sacramento and other nearby counties’ health officials continue to link to large, mainly in-home gatherings in which friends and family members are not wearing masks or maintaining social distance.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday afternoon announced a statewide mask requirement for all in public, saying the state is “seeing too many people with faces uncovered – putting at risk the real progress we have made in fighting the disease.” More than 5,200 Californians have died among over 157,000 positive cases, the state Department of Public Health said in a Wednesday update.
The statewide mask order came a day after local public health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson told The Sacramento Bee that Sacramento County was considering making face coverings mandatory.
Beilenson and county public health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye said this week that contact tracers have linked many of the recent cases to gatherings inside people’s homes, such as birthday parties, where people are not following social distancing protocols.
Yolo County officials in a news release Thursday morning said a spike in new cases there is also being linked to similar types of gatherings, as well as people who have traveled outside of the county and then returned. The county says it will limit outdoor religious services to a maximum of 100 attendees.
Sacramento County is fast approaching 2,000 total lab-positive cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the highly contagious virus. Almost 900 more have been reported in neighboring El Dorado, Placer and Yolo counties combined. The four-county capital region has reported 100 COVID-19 fatalities as of Thursday morning.
After reporting 67 new infections and four additional deaths Wednesday morning, each among the highest one-day reported totals since the pandemic started, Sacramento County public health officials added 48 more cases but no deaths Thursday morning.
The county death toll stands at 67. Of those, 31 have come in the city of Sacramento, 15 in unincorporated parts of the county, eight in Citrus Heights, seven in Rancho Cordova, three in Elk Grove and three in Folsom.
For the first time, Sacramento County’s public health dashboard estimates that there are more than 500 active cases of the disease: there have been 1,940 cases in all and 1,367 “likely recovered” cases, which after accounting for fatalities results in 506 active cases.
Placer County set another record for a one-day increase, disclosing 28 new COVID-19 cases Thursday morning for an all-time total of 460 infections. Of those, nine have died and 277 cases are considered recovered, meaning approximately 174 of the cases are active. Placer has reported record highs in new cases three days in a row, after health officials added 21 new cases on Tuesday and 21 more Wednesday.
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. On Thursday afternoon, the county reported 11 new cases. Countywide, a total of 302 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 four new cases reported Thursday, 125 people have been infected, 62 of them from the Lake Tahoe region. The County has reported 100 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. Sutter County reported five news cases Thursday, bringing the total to 97. Three people have died there. In Yuba County, officials reported one case new case Wednesday and no new cases Thursday. The county has reported a total of 39 cases and one death.
This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 12:56 PM.
