Coronavirus updates: 400,700 Californians infected, hospitals brace for patient surge
A sustained surge in COVID-19 patients pouring into some California hospitals has alarmed local and state officials, and is putting pressure on other counties in the state to prepared for an influx of cases not yet seen since the coronavirus pandemic began.
More than 400,700 Californians have been infected by the virus and 7,755 have been killed, as of Tuesday morning. And more Californians are hospitalized with the virus than at any other time: Nearly 7,100 people are in the hospital with COVID-19, and about 28% of those hospitalized patients are receiving intensive care.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced sweeping shutdowns on businesses and schools last week to slow the record-breaking number of infections and hospitalizations. It will be another week, if not longer, before local health officials see whether the closures have its intended effect.
Sacramento County health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson told The Sacramento Bee on Monday businesses openings don’t appear to have contributed to virus transmission “anywhere near as much” as private gatherings are continuing to do. Still, those reopenings may have given the false impression that the worst of the pandemic was over, county health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye previously told The Bee.
As of Tuesday morning, the virus has infected nearly 11,600 residents in the six-county Sacramento area and killed 150. Local health officials are increasingly worried by dwindling resources at hospitals — Sacramento, Placer and Yolo counties have less than 20% of their intensive care beds available, according to state health department data released Tuesday.
Over the last two weeks about 7.5% of tests are returning positive. That’s an increase from the 14-day average reported two weeks ago, when about 6.8% of tests were returning positive. The growth means the increase in cases cannot be attributed to simply more testing being conducted.
How COVID-19 rise in Sacramento compares to other U.S. metro areas
The rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases is rising quickly in the four-county Sacramento region but it remains lower than in most major U.S. metros, according to a Bee analysis of data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
The Sacramento region reported about 6,730 new cases in the four weeks between June 21 and July 19, for a rate of about 294 new cases per 100,000 residents. That’s lower than the rate of 504 new cases per 100,000 residents among all U.S. metro areas with at least one million residents.
But it’s also nearly 20 times higher than the rate of new infections reported in the Sacramento region from late April to late May. During that period, the Sacramento metro had – by far – the lowest infection rate among large metros in the nation.
Miami, Phoenix and Orlando suffered the highest rate of new infections during the last four weeks among the 53 U.S. metros with more than one million residents. The lowest rate of recent infections was found in Hartford, Connecticut, Boston and Rochester, New York.
Two Central Valley hospitals face COVID-19 patient surge
Lodi Memorial Hospital, which sits in the heart of a Central Valley town framed by vineyards, suddenly has found itself front and center in the latest and perhaps most ominous phase of California’s viral epidemic — a sustained surge in coronavirus patients that is pushing some hospitals beyond the limit.
As of Monday, COVID-19 patients filled 42 of the 91 beds in use, according to county data, and all 12 of the ICU beds were in use. To worsen matters, as many as two dozen of the hospital’s own staff have tested positive.
A team of 20 Air Force doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists from Travis Air Force Base descended on the Adventist Health-managed hospital in Lodi on Wednesday to reinforce its depleted intensive care unit staff.
Hospitals throughout the county are in the throes of the epidemic. Another, Dameron Hospital, also is being aided by an Air Force health team that arrived late last week.
”The message is: hospitals are operating near capacity, and our ICUs have been routinely over capacity for several weeks,” said Jeff Costa, the coordinator for San Joaquin County’s emergency management critical care. “It means the situation is so dire that they have to put an ICU patient in a setting that is not designed for it.”
Coronavirus cases in Sacramento still linked mostly to family, friend gatherings
The coronavirus pandemic continues to hit California’s capital region hard amid a statewide surge that has now lasted more than a month, but a may have given the false impression, not businesses reopening, that are contributing to the bulk of virus spread.
Sacramento County reported 391 new lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases Monday, breaking a one-day record of 333 set July 4 and boosting the pandemic’s all-time infection total past 7,300, according to the county’s COVID-19 data dashboard.
The record-high case total, though, resulted from new cases Monday morning plus a backlog of the nine previous days, county health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson explained. Of the 391, more than 200 new cases still came from the normal roughly three-day period for which test results are usually received, he said.
“Say you have John, who’s a 25-year-old who went to a party where there were 30 or 40 people, and spread the virus,” Beilenson said. “And let’s say the contact tracing didn’t identify that Julio was at the party with John, and Julio works at a restaurant downtown and — even though they’re working outdoors now — Julio comes down with the coronavirus.”
That hypothetical restaurant may have had to close and report to the county that it experienced a positive COVID-19 case when, “in actuality, the case came from a gathering,” Beilenson explained. The restaurant was, as he termed it, the “second-generation” site for that particular infection.
Beilenson also said the county’s contact tracing staff of fewer than 60 people is “now beyond capacity” and simply does not have the resources available to investigate the origins for every new case that pours in.
Most state contact tracers still unassigned, despite overwhelmed counties
Most California state workers trained to be COVID-19 “contact tracers” still haven’t started tracking down people exposed to the coronavirus, even as many counties say they don’t have enough staff to do the work.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has frequently said state workers will be essential to California’s contact tracing efforts. Earlier this year his administration notified many state workers they would be reassigned from their usual jobs to help counties track infections. He’s also repeatedly touted the fact that the state met its goal of training 10,000 contact tracers by July 1, which includes a mix of county and state workers.
As of last week, however, just over a third of the 3,600 state workers who were trained had been assigned to do that work, California Department of Public Health spokeswoman Ali Bay said. The assignment process is “ongoing” with more scheduled for this week, she said.
Some state workers completed their training months ago and are still waiting to be deployed.
In emails obtained by The Sacramento Bee, one state worker who completed his training in early May sent an email later that month saying he was still waiting for an assignment. Almost a month and a half later, an official with the California Department of Public Health responded saying workers were being assigned in phases based on need, but that there was no set schedule for when he might be used.
3 dead after COVID-19 outbreak at Woodland residential care facility
A COVID-19 outbreak at residential care facilities for people with developmental disabilities in Woodland reported last week has left three dead.
Yolo County reported an outbreak last Wednesday, noting six residents and four staff members had been infected with the coronavirus in connection with Woodland Residential Services. At the time it reported the outbreak, the virus had killed at least one resident.
As of Tuesday, at least two more deaths at the residential care facilities have been reported by Yolo County public health department. It’s unclear whether it is staff members or residents who died from the virus. No new infections at the Woodland facilities have been reported since last Wednesday.
New pop-up testing in Galt, a COVID-19 hotspot
The California National Guard will open a free pop-up testing site this Wednesday and Thursday at Walker Community Park in Galt.
Located at Orr Road and Sargent Avenue, the testing site is a drive-through only that begins at 8 a.m. both days, and is first-come, first-serve.
Residents interested in getting tested do not need an appointment, and will offer up to 100 tests per day. Residents don’t need to have symptoms to get a test, but they must be 18 or over and have a valid ID and contact information for test results.
The Sacramento County public health lab will process the samples, and results will be provided five to seven business days after testing, according to a county press release Tuesday.
The city has seen at least 307 people get infected with the virus as of Tuesday morning, and has one of the highest infection rates per capita of any city in Sacramento County.
Former Sacramento City Councilman hospitalized with COVID-19
Robbie Waters, the 84-year-old former county sheriff, former Sacramento police detective and the last Republican to serve on the Sacramento City Council, is battling COVID-19.
Waters entered an ICU on Monday because he was having difficulty breathing. He may have to go on a ventilator. Waters’ family has been told to hope for the best, but not to rule out the worst.
“He’s handling it the best he can,” said Judie Waters, Robbie’s wife of 60 years. “We’ve got a lot of prayers going. A lot of people care.”
Latest Sacramento-area numbers: 150 dead, over 11,600 infected
The six-county region of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba has seen 11,654 cases of the coronavirus as of Tuesday afternoon. The virus has killed a total of 150 in the region.
Sacramento County reported 360 new cases Tuesday, bringing the total number of confirmed coronavirus infections to 7,686 since the pandemic started. The virus has killed 96 people, according to the county’s data dashboard.
There are 212 COVID-19 patients in Sacramento County hospital beds as of Tuesday, an all-time high. Of those, 59 are in intensive care units, according to state public health data. About 14.7% of ICU beds are currently available, as of Tuesday
Placer County has reported a total of 1,442 infections in the county, as of Tuesday. There are now 48 people hospitalized because the virus, and 10 in intensive care. Another death was reported Tuesday, bringing the death toll in Placer to 12. The vast majority of cases, about 80%, have originated from the south Placer area including Roseville, Rocklin and Lincoln.
Yolo County on Tuesday reported 42 new COVID-19 cases for a total of 1,200 cases, only four more cases than the county had on Monday. The county’s COVID-19 dashboard on Tuesday also reported three new deaths from the virus, but the county’s death toll, 34, remained the same from the previous day. The county on Monday reported a total of 1,196 cases and 34 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Yolo County health officials have changed the way they gather data and post it on the dashboard. They will continue to update the dashboard at 5 p.m., but the updated COVID-19 data will reflect what was gathered the previous day to give staff more time to input the data. The county made the switch on Tuesday, so those numbers will be less than the previous day, officials wrote on the dashboard web page.
About 1 in 10 infections have been linked to outbreaks at six long-term care facilities in Yolo County, resulting in 112 people infected and 20 deaths. Stollwood Convalescent Hospital’s outbreak, which was first reported in April, has accounted for 17 deaths.
El Dorado County reported 21 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday. The new cases included 14 reported in the Lake Tahoe region, which has nearly have the county’s 464 cases reported since the start of the pandemic. The county on Monday reported 49 new cases, 21 of them in El Dorado Hills, that had accumulated over the weekend. The county does not update case numbers over the weekend. The county reported its first death due to complications from COVID-19 over the weekend. On Tuesday, two people were hospitalized for COVID-19 treatment; both of them were in intensive care.
Sutter County reported 14 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday evening for a total of 553 confirmed infections. Of those, 13 people were in the hospital. Four people in the county have died since the pandemic started, but no new deaths were reported Tuesday. The county on Sunday reported 19 new cases, along with an additional 19 new cases Monday.
Yuba County reported 20 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday evening for a total of 309 confirmed infections. Of those, seven people were in the hospital Tuesday. Three have died in the county thus far; no new deaths were reported Tuesday. The county reported 13 new cases Sunday and 19 new cases Monday.
In the Yuba-Sutter area, about a third of the patients testing positive showed no symptoms of the virus, based on local public health data reported.
World numbers: Death toll over 613,000, more than 14.8 million infected
Over 14.8 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 worldwide and more than 615,000 have died as of Tuesday evening, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
About one-quarter of each — about 3.89 million infections and more than 141,000 deaths — have come in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins.
After the U.S., the coronavirus has hit hardest in Brazil, where over 2.1 million have tested positive and over 81,000 have died.
Next by death toll are the United Kingdom at more than 45,500, Mexico at over 40,400, Italy at more than 35,000, France at just over 30,000, and both Spain and India with more than 28,000, 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 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 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 people 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 July 21, 2020 at 8:17 AM.