Coronavirus updates: California watchlist updated; Sacramento County death toll tops 200
Intense heat, bizarre weather phenomenons and rare rolling blackouts across California have taken some attention away from the state’s battle with the coronavirus, but officials nonetheless reported more than 20,000 new lab-confirmed cases over the weekend.
The Golden State has now topped 625,000 COVID-19 infections during the pandemic, with the California Department of Public Health reporting over 12,600 new cases Saturday, nearly 7,900 Sunday and about 6,500 Monday morning.
More than 11,200 Californians have died of the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus in the past six months, including 77 added to the tally Sunday. The state reported just 18 deaths Monday morning, though, for the lowest one-day death tally in nearly a month.
Also Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom and CDPH announced that a large backlog of COVID-19 data has been fully cleared, and because of that, the watchlist for counties has been unfrozen after a two-week-plus pause on additions and removals.
The list grew from 38 counties to 42. Five counties — Amador, Calaveras, Inyo, Mendocino and Sierra — were added; Santa Cruz County was the only removal.
Newsom and the state since early July have re-implemented stricter shutdown orders on businesses and gathering places in response to spiking infection totals beginning around mid-June, which in turn led to higher death totals in recent weeks.
The county monitoring list has major implications for local governments and determines whether school campuses, places of worship and certain business types can reopen.
All counties statewide have been required to close bars and indoor operations at dine-in restaurants, family entertainment centers, movie theaters, card rooms, zoos and museums. Counties on the watchlist for three straight days must also close or modify for outdoor operations: gyms, places of worship, non-essential office spaces, shopping malls and personal care services like barbershops and hair and nail salons.
The state also requires a county to be off the list for two consecutive weeks before it can allow K-12 campuses to reopen for on-campus learning. For higher education campuses, it’s three days off the list.
CDPH assigned retroactive dates for the five counties whose status changed: Amador and Mendocino counties are listed as joining the list July 25; Inyo’s date is Aug. 6, Calaveras is retroactive to last Thursday and Sierra’s on the list as of this past Saturday. Santa Cruz County came off the list Friday.
Affected businesses in the five newly added counties must close by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, the state COVID-19 website says.
The watchlist continues to include about 97% of California’s 40 million residents.
Why was there a backlog of COVID-19 data?
California’s official COVID-19 infection totals, both statewide and at the county level, had lingered under an air of uncertainty since government officials in early August disclosed a serious, widespread technical issue that created a backlog of nearly 300,000 disease reports dating back to about July 25, according to state Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly.
Ghaly revealed earlier this month that the state plans to build an entirely new computer system to use for COVID-19 data rather than CalREDIE, the electronic system used by labs that encountered the issue after apparently being overwhelmed. State and county health officials, including in Sacramento, have said data reporting during the CalREDIE glitch involved spreadsheets sent manually from labs.
During a news briefing last Friday, Newsom suggested the state had cleared or nearly cleared that backlog, and gave some optimistic figures: of about 7,900 new cases going into the system that day, about 4,400 were from the backlog and just 3,500 were considered “new.” The latter would be less than one-third of the daily increases observed several times in July as infections surged.
But after that low figure — and after CDPH in Friday’s update removed a disclaimer about the technical glitch from its COVID-19 webpages — Saturday’s 12,614 marked the second-highest case increase of the pandemic. It was also a higher figure than the 12,500 reported Aug. 10, the first day CDPH said included backlogged figures.
As of Monday’s update, CDPH figures included a note phrased slightly differently from the dislcaimer, not referencing prior data issues or the backlog, reading: “Numbers do not represent true day-over-day change as these results include cases from prior to yesterday.”
There has always been some element of delay, generally in the neighborhood of about three days, as it takes time for test specimens to be collected, transported to labs, processed by those labs and then reported back to counties and CDPH.
Counties’ COVID-19 dashboards, including Sacramento and Placer, continued to be topped with disclaimers that their case totals could still be underestimates due to the statewide data problem through the weekend. Sacramento County removed its disclaimer Monday morning; Placer’s remains in place.
Deaths and hospitalization figures were not impacted by the data problem, and Newsom and Ghaly have pointed to hospital numbers as an apparent indicator of the state’s improving progress in the pandemic.
Statewide hospitalization and ICU totals continued to decline over the weekend and on Monday. The number of patients hospitalized in California with confirmed cases of COVID-19 fell below 5,000 Monday for the first time since June. That figure had peaked at about 7,200 in late July.
ICU patients are below 1,600, down from over 2,000. The hospitalized patient total had essentially been stable between late April and late June, fluctuating slightly but staying between about 3,000 and 3,500.
The state has averaged 133 deaths a day for the two weeks preceding Sunday, more than double the rolling 14-day average recorded in late June, according to CDPH data.
Sacramento County passes 200 dead; 300 in 6-county area
The six-county region – Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba – has reported 304 combined coronavirus deaths, reaching the 300-death milestone Monday after surpassing 20,000 lab-confirmed cases last Thursday. About a dozen more deaths, and 200 additional infections, have recently been reported in Amador County, Sacramento’s neighbor to the east, with all the fatalities linked to elderly care homes.
Sacramento County health officials have reported 14,326 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus and 218 deaths, last updated Monday morning. After previously updating numbers seven days a week, the county did not provide daily updates this past weekend or the one before it. Between last Friday and Monday’s update, Sacramento’s case total grew by 711 and its death toll rose by 19.
According to state data as of Monday, 251 people are being treated in county hospitals, 80 of whom are in ICUs, the latter a decrease by three from Sunday. The county still has 99 ICU beds available for its roughly 1.5 million residents.
Yolo County health officials have reported a total of 2,076 cases and 46 deaths. Monday’s update added 30 new cases, with 25 reported Sunday and 58 on Saturday. There are currently five patients in county hospitals, three of whom are in ICUs. The county has five ICU beds remaining, according to state data.
Yolo has seen outbreaks at several long-term care facilities, which account for 118 of its case total and 22 of its fatalities. Woodland’s Stollwood Convalescent Hospital reported an outbreak in April and it is still the most severe outbreak in the county. There, 66 people connected to the facility have been infected with coronavirus and 17 have died. The facility will close permanently in September.
Placer County has reported 2,626 cases and 28 deaths, adding 25 cases and no deaths in a Monday update.
Placer reported a death Saturday, one Friday and two deaths on each of last Tuesday and Wednesday. There are 61 people hospitalized in the county and 13 are being treated in ICUs.
El Dorado County has reported a total of 849 cases and two deaths from COVID-19, last updated Monday afternoon; the county did not provide daily updates over the weekend. On Friday, 25 new cases were reported by county health officials. A week ago Monday, the county reported its second COVID-19 death. There are currently two people in county hospitals, both of whom are being treated in ICUs. The county has 11 ICU beds available. El Dorado County remains the only county in the greater Sacramento area to have not been placed onto the state’s regional coronavirus watchlist.
Sutter County has reported a total of 1,094 cases and seven deaths. On Friday, health officials added 21 new cases of coronavirus and added 30 new cases Thursday. Fourteen people are being hospitalized. County health officials reported the highest single-day increase in infections last Monday, adding 44 more confirmed cases to the total. The last record was set on Aug. 5, when 41 people were confirmed infected.
In neighboring Yuba County, 758 people have been infected and four have died. On Friday, 21 new cases were reported and on Thursday, 30 more were added. On Aug. 9, 46 people received positive test results for coronavirus, which set a daily infection record. Twelve people in Yuba County are being hospitalized.
Sacramento County proposes $69 million plan to fight pandemic
Sacramento County officials are looking to tap $69 million of federal funds to improve the local virus fight on several fronts, about a week after facing heavy scrutiny for earlier budgeting failures to do so.
The $69 million would go toward buying syringes, vials and storage coolers to offer county residents faster access to immunization shots in the event a vaccine for COVID-19 is approved.
Sacramento County health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson said he’s hopeful a reliable COVID-19 vaccine will available by early 2021, and wants the county to be able to offer some people vaccine shots right away, pointing out earlier struggles by states and local leaders in getting federal support amid supply shortages this spring and summer.
“We’ve learned our lesson,” Beilenson said. “I can see the federal government not getting enough syringes.”
The county Board of Supervisors will vote on two sets of health department funding requests at meetings Tuesday and Wednesday. The money would come from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
Last week, the county came under fire when it was disclosed that it had received $181 million in CARES Act money but had spent less than 1% of it on the public health efforts to reduce the spread of the virus. Instead, county officials had transferred $104 million of the coronavirus emergency funding to the Sheriff’s Office in what county officials described as a budget “swap.”
The disclosure came as health officials struggled with two months of rising COVID-19 infections and deaths in Sacramento County.
On Tuesday, health officials will ask for $24 million in retroactive funding for several ongoing efforts. Then on Wednesday, health officials will ask the board for another $45 million for a variety of expenditures.
The county already signed a $13 million deal with a private company, StemExpress, to increase virus testing efforts. The Folsom-based firm said it can return test results within 72 hours.
World numbers: US death toll reaches 170,000; UK count drops
A map and data maintained by Johns Hopkins University shows the global total for confirmed COVID-19 cases at 21.7 million as of Monday afternoon. The world death toll is at more than 772,000, of which more than 170,000 have been in the United States.
Brazil is next at about 108,000 dead, followed by Mexico at nearly 57,000 and India at almost 51,000.
The United Kingdom’s count on Monday was lowered by more than 5,000 after the government changed its methodology, The New York Times reported. The U.K. now shows more than 41,000 COVID-19 deaths. Next is 35,000 in Italy, over 30,000 in France, more than 28,000 in Spain, 26,000 in Peru and nearly 20,000 in Iran. Colombia and Russia each have death tolls above 15,000, according to Johns Hopkins. Chile and South Africa are between 10,000 and 12,000 dead. Canada, Germany and Belgium have recorded more than 9,000 fatalities.
The U.S. accounts for 5.4 million lab-positive COVID-19 cases, the most of any nation and about one-quarter the worldwide total.
This story was originally published August 17, 2020 at 9:56 AM.
