Coronavirus updates: Bar closures mark California’s first major reversal in reopening
With the coronavirus pandemic continuing its resurgence, California has begun reversing reopenings in several hard-hit parts of the state, starting with bars.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday required seven counties, including Los Angeles, to shut down their bars immediately; he recommended that eight others — including Sacramento, which ordered bars shut down early Monday afternoon — do the same.
It’s the first retightening of social distancing protocols to be mandated across multiple California jurisdictions since the state allowed economic reopening to begin in phases around mid-May. Newsom last week urged Imperial County — where hospitals are becoming overwhelmed and the rate of positive test results is far above that of the rest of the state — to shut back down, at least in part, to get the outbreak there under control.
California as of Monday morning reports more than 216,000 total cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the highly contagious coronavirus, with more than 62,000 of those positive tests reported in the past 14 days. More than 5,900 have died statewide since the pandemic started.
Hospitalizations, and the number of patients in intensive care units with confirmed cases of COVID-19, have spiked dramatically over the past two weeks. A state data dashboard now shows 4,776 coronavirus patients hospitalized, an increase by 199 from Sunday’s update. That figure has surged by almost 54 percent in the past 14 days, from 3,103 on June 14.
A total of 1,465 patients were in the ICU as of Monday’s update, an increase of 80 from the previous day for a near-6 percent spike.
Both hospital and ICU rates are at all-time highs for the pandemic.
Imperial is one of two California counties currently using surge beds for coronavirus patients, according to another recently posted state dashboard. Sixteen of 109 available beds at a federal medical station set up in Imperial were occupied, that dashboard showed as of Monday morning. San Mateo County has four COVID-19 patients in a surge hospital, with 112 more beds available.
The state maintains a “watch list” of counties it is monitoring and directly communicating with due to elevated coronavirus activity. The fluctuating list automatically adds counties in which certain thresholds have been exceeded, indicating that the virus is spreading rapidly in those areas.
Newsom’s office made bar shutdowns mandatory in the seven counties that had been on the watch list for two weeks or more as of Sunday: Los Angeles, Fresno, Imperial, Kern, Kings, San Joaquin and Tulare.
Bar closures were recommended in the eight counties that had been on the list for at least three days, but less than two weeks: Sacramento, Contra Costa, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Stanislaus and Ventura.
Glenn, Merced, Solano and Orange joined those 15 counties for a total of 19 on the watch list as of Monday afternoon.
Newsom’s office allowed bars to reopen throughout most of California just over two weeks prior, on June 12. Two counties from each list — Imperial and San Joaquin, plus Contra Costa and Santa Clara — had not yet permitted bar openings, so the governor’s requirement or recommendation is that they continue to stay closed in those four jurisdictions.
The state Department of Public Health in a news release identified bars as “the highest risk sector of non-essential business currently open,” because they often bring many different groups of people together with alcohol consumption impairing patrons’ adherence to social distancing and mask protocols.
Sacramento County hospitalizations surge, bars ordered closed
Coronavirus activity continues to spike drastically near California’s capital. Sacramento County now reports 3,004 lab-confirmed cases of the coronavirus, with a record-shattering 228 new cases added to the tally Monday, following 110 new cases over the weekend and a then-record 154 new infections last Friday. Two more patients died for an all-time death total of 68, the county said Monday.
Hospitalized COVID-19 cases in Sacramento County have soared to their highest ever total, with 87 in beds as of a Monday update to state data. There had been 77 as of Sunday’s update, which had tied a mark not reached since April 6.
County hospitalizations have more than doubled in eight days, up from 39 as of June 28.
Sunday’s reported total of 77 is just one patient shy of a doubling in hospitalizations in seven days, after 39 had been hospitalized June 20. It’s also over 12 times more than the seven patients who were in hospitals a little over a month ago, on May 21.
The current hospitalization spike is what landed Sacramento County back on the state health department’s monitoring list and at least part of what prompted the county to close bars back down Monday. The county had been on the list briefly, earlier in June, when totals jumped from the teens to the low 30s in less than a week. The numbers stayed stable, below 40, for a little over a week until the more recent, ongoing boom.
As of Sunday’s update by state health officials, 20 patients are in the ICU in Sacramento County, not yet approaching the April 20 record of 33, but a tenfold increase over May 25, when there were just two ICU patients countywide.
Local health leaders, including in Sacramento and Yolo counties, have in recent weeks attributed growing COVID-19 activity in the region mainly to large private gatherings in people’s homes coinciding roughly with the Memorial Day holiday weekend late last month.
Those counties’ health officers have cited contact tracing investigations that linked outbreaks to birthday and graduation parties, in which groups of friends and extended family members came in close proximity with little to no social distancing, rather than reopening businesses.
However, in the few days leading up to Monday’s shutdown, Sacramento’s midtown bar scene has seen a number of bars and restaurants close down, either due to a confirmed positive case involving an employee or patron; or voluntarily, as a precaution against neighboring businesses. The Zebra Club, a bar at which a Bee reporter observed almost no social distancing rules being followed on the first night it was allowed back open, closed less than two weeks later after learning a customer had tested positive, according to a sign posted in its window.
County health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson told The Bee last week he was concerned about the possibility of virus spread in bars.
Then, early Monday afternoon, Beilenson announced bars would be closed effective 6 p.m. Monday evening.
“In general, businesses are behaving quite well, with the exception of bars, where there is lack of social distancing, especially as people get inebriated,” Beilenson said.
Exploding outbreak at San Quentin prompts transfer concern
As of Monday morning, at least 213 inmates at California Correctional Center in Susanville had tested positive for coronavirus in the preceding 14 days, according to the state’s online testing dashboard. It’s the first outbreak of its type in Susanville, a Lassen County city where the prison is a major employer.
The outbreak happened after the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation transferred three inmates from San Quentin earlier this month, said Richard Egan, Lassen County’s administrative officer.
At San Quentin, at least 1,016 in custody had tested positive as of Monday afternoon — a skyrocketing figure, up from 539 as of last Friday, now representing more than one-quarter of the prison’s roughly 3,500 inmates.
“Frankly, we were disappointed that the institutions made the decision to continue to transfer inmates in and out of CCC,” Egan said in an interview Friday. “It seems like that concern was warranted.”
Government leaders in Lassen County, where there were just three active coronavirus cases not counting the prison outbreak, have expressed concern. One county supervisor said he was “mad as hell at the state of California” for bringing an outbreak into Lassen via prison transfer.
Latest in Sacramento region: Over 4,000 infected, 103 dead
The four-county capital region has surpassed 4,000 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the roughly four months it has been spreading. Of those, 103 have died.
Sacramento County has reported 3,004 total infections and 68 fatalities from the disease, last updated Monday. Over 1,700 of those cases have come within capital city limits, according to the county dashboard. County health officials estimate 1,657 cases as “likely recovered,” which means there are now roughly 1,279 active cases in Sacramento County.
Yolo County has seen 505 infections and 24 deaths, reporting 23 new confirmed cases Monday following 21 on Sunday and 20 on Saturday. Last Tuesday, county health officials reported a record-setting day of 26 new infections. Seventeen of the 24 fatalities have come at Stollwood Convalescent Hospital in Woodland, the site of an outbreak first reported in April.
Placer County now reports 643 infections and 11 total deaths, last updated Monday. The county added 16 cases Sunday and 16 more Monday. Two deaths were reported last week after about a month with none. Placer had 10 confirmed cases in the hospital, with four of them in the ICU, as of the most recent update.
El Dorado County has kept its numbers low, but as of Monday, 178 people have tested positive for the virus, and one person was being treated in an intensive care unit for COVID-19. No one has died from the virus there. About half of all cases stem from the Lake Tahoe region.
Sutter County has a total of 160 coronavirus cases and three deaths. Sixteen new cases were reported over the weekend. Yuba County, which has a case total of 65 and one death, reported four new cases Monday.
World totals: Half a million dead, over 10 million infected
Global coronavirus figures recently surpassed two substantial milestones, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University: Over 504,000 have died among more than 10 million total positive cases.
About one-quarter of all reported cases and fatalities, at just over 2.58 million cases and more than 126,000 deaths, have come in the United States, as of Monday afternoon.
The disease is next most active in Brazil, where nearly 58,000 have died among over 1.3 million infections. More than 43,000 have died in the United Kingdom, followed by almost 35,000 in Italy, nearly 30,000 in France, more than 28,000 in Spain and close to 27,000 in Mexico, according to Johns Hopkins.
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 June 29, 2020 at 9:06 AM.
