Coronavirus updates: Could Sacramento-area counties be off California watchlist soon?
California has worked through its backlog of COVID-19 cases, giving a clearer picture of how coronavirus activity is trending and where in the state it may be spreading most rapidly, holding steady or slowing down.
A total of 4,636 new lab-confirmed coronavirus cases reported Tuesday marked California’s smallest daily increase dating back to late June that the state says was not impacted by the statewide backlog issue.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has said some true totals for “new” infections in recent days may have been even smaller, noting that out of Friday’s official tally of 7,900 cases entering the system, about 4,400 were from the data error-caused backlog and only about 3,500 were new.
To date, California has recorded more than 632,000 total lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 11,000 coronavirus deaths, reporting exactly 100 fatalities Tuesday morning for a total of 11,342, according to California Department of Public Health data.
By Monday, Newsom and the CDPH confirmed the backlog has been fully accounted for in the data. They announced the state’s watchlist had resumed adding and removing counties now that the data issue has been resolved.
State health officials updated that list, with the total increasing from 38 to 42 of the state’s counties: Santa Cruz County came off of it; and Amador, Calaveras, Inyo, Mendocino and Sierra counties joined it.
Those 42 counties continue to make up about 97% of California by population.
The monitoring list determines which counties are subject to stricter guidelines within Newsom’s stay-at-home order, which as of Wednesday will have been in place for five months.
After essentially a full shutdown of all non-essential businesses and gatherings from late March through early May, California began gradually reopening numerous business types from mid-May to early June, with modifications in place requiring social distancing, mask use and other sanitary measures.
But faced with a surge in new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, Newsom in early July rolled back reopenings.
All counties statewide have been required for more than a month to close bars and indoor operations at dine-in restaurants, family entertainment centers, movie theaters, card rooms, zoos and museums. Counties that have been on the watchlist for three straight days or more 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.
Affected businesses in the five newly added counties must close by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, the state COVID-19 website says.
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. Schools in counties that are on the watchlist, but in which fewer than 200 new cases per 100,000 residents have been reported in the most recent two-week stretch, can apply for a waiver to seek earlier reopening.
With those school requirements in mind, the data glitch that froze the watchlist came at a problematic time: days or weeks before districts and campuses statewide were slated to begin the 2020-21 academic year.
The statewide total of patients hospitalized with the virus fell below 5,000 on Monday for the first time in nearly two months, then jumped back over that mark Tuesday with a net increase of 86 patients between the two days. The hospitalization total had spiked in late July to nearly 7,200.
The ICU total is also down about 20% in the past three weeks, to about 1,600 as of Tuesday from an all-time high over 2,000.
Milestone: 10 million tests performed in California
Tuesday’s state data also show California has now surpassed 10 million total tests processed by labs, a figure roughly equal to one-quarter the state’s population.
In the 14 days leading up to Tuesday, the state averaged about 125,000 tests a day.
California has, at points since early July, had to deal with nationwide supply chain issues and turnaround times from the point of diagnostic testing to receiving results. That’s been an issue in Sacramento County, where officials recently committed to a $13.5 million contract for a Folsom-based company promising to process and return test results in three days or less.
The state reports that 6.8% of tests in the past week have returned positive, 6.5% when looking at the past two weeks. CDPH lists a goal of keeping that figure below 8%, while the World Health Organization says communities should be below 5% before starting to reopen businesses.
Health experts say test rate positivity is a simple but effective metric for determining how prevalent the true spread of the virus may be in a particular geographic area, while accounting for increases or decreases in the number of tests perform. Prior to a late June surge, California’s statewide average positivity had been between 4% and 5%; it rose and plateaued near about 7.5% for most of July.
What do state’s watchlist data mean for the Sacramento area?
The CDPH watchlist includes a number of criteria for counties to stay off of it: The rate of new cases and percentage of tests returning positive must remain below certain thresholds; the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 can’t increase more than 10% in a three-day window; and a sufficient portion of ICU beds (20%) and ventilators (25%) must remain available.
A county will land on the list if it has experienced more than 100 new cases per 100,000 residents in the past two weeks. If a county has reported more than 25 new cases per 100,000, and its test rate positivity is above 8%, that will also result in a spot on the list.
Once a county is added to the list, it must come in below all of those thresholds for three consecutive days to stay off of it. That’s the case for San Diego County, which Newsom suggested Monday could be removed Tuesday.
In the capital region, Placer County met all the criteria for removal for a third consecutive day as of Tuesday and will be removed from the list Wednesday, county Health Officer Dr. Aimee Sisson announced Tuesday morning. The county has been on the monitoring list since July 9.
“This means that Placer County will be removed from the monitoring list tomorrow,” Sisson told the Board of Supervisors in a meeting Tuesday morning. “Yes, you heard that right. We’re coming off the monitoring list.”
If Placer County remains off the state list for 14 consecutive days, Sisson said all schools in kindergarten through 12th grade would be allowed to reopen for in-person instruction under state health guidelines and modifications.
But indoor business operations, such as hair salons, ordered to shut down in a July 13 state health order must remained closed until further notice. Sisson said she has written a letter to state health officials to change the order that would allow these businesses to reopen indoor operations once the county has been off the list for 14 consecutive days. She said the California Department of Public Health is considering her request.
Data tables from the state show that the rest of the immediate four-county Sacramento area — Sacramento, El Dorado (which has never been on the watchlist) and Yolo — faring well in the CDPH monitoring metrics as of Monday. Yolo’s new case rate was 104 new cases per 100,000 residents in the past two weeks as of Monday. Sacramento’s rate was just under 140. Neither showed more 8% of tests returning positive.
But some of Sacramento’s other neighbors, including the Yuba-Sutter bi-county area and recently watchlisted Amador County, appear to still be plagued by too many new COVID-19 infections. All three are above 200 new cases per 100,000: Amador and Yuba each at 225, and Sutter at 242.
About 9% of tests in each of Amador and Sutter have returned positive, while more than 11% have been positive in Yuba County, the CDPH chart shows.
None of those Sacramento-area counties were above the state’s thresholds for hospital or ICU figures, though some including Placer have plateaued near their all-time high hospitalization totals for a few weeks.
High school in Sacramento calls itself a day care, reopens
Capital Christian High School started up last Thursday, apparently the first and only high school in Northern California that has started on-campus instruction up to this point.
What’s the justification for opening when campuses in Sacramento County are required to stay closed for on-site learning? Capital Christian is calling itself not a school, but a day care.
Each Capital Christian High teacher earned day care licensing before the start of the school year. The campus now has what it calls 20 high school “life groups” on campus. No room has more than 14 students and most have 10 or fewer.
Sacramento County health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson told The Bee on Sunday he plans to call Capital Christian and may have to “shut them down” if he determines what the school is doing violates state or county COVID-19 rules
“I don’t know exactly what they are doing,” Beilenson said. “If they are running a high school, that is clearly not allowed.”
But Capital Christian Head of Schools Tim Wong defends the school’s strategy, saying the campus is adhering to social distancing and safety measures, also pointing out that on-campus attendance is “all voluntary.”
The K-6 portion of Capital Christian, on the same grounds, has on-campus day care options for children, which prompted the administrators to pursue that on the high school side.
“It’s basically a study place for students,” Wong said. “We like to think of ourselves as academic anthropologists.”
Latest Sacramento-area numbers: More than 300 dead
The six-county region – Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba – has reported 305 combined coronavirus deaths, reaching the 300-death milestone Monday after surpassing 20,000 lab-confirmed cases last Thursday. About a dozen additional deaths, and another 200 infections, have recently been reported in Amador County, Sacramento’s neighbor to the east, with all of those fatalities linked to elderly care homes.
Sacramento County health officials have reported 14,602 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus and 219 deaths, last updated Tuesday morning with 276 additional cases.
According to state data as of Tuesday, 250 people are being treated in county hospitals, 81 of whom are in ICUs. The county has 110 ICU beds available for its roughly 1.5 million residents, according to the state. Both hospitalization figures have plateaued near their current figures in Sacramento County since about the start of August, after declining slightly from a late July peak.
Yolo County health officials have reported a total of 2,096 COVID-19 cases and 46 deaths. Tuesday’s update added 21 new cases after reporting 30 cases Monday, 25 cases Sunday and 58 Saturday. There were six patients in hospitals in the county Tuesday, five of them were in ICUs, according to state data. The county has five ICU beds remaining.
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 2,643 cases and 28 deaths, adding 25 cases Monday and 18 Tuesday, with no new deaths disclosed either day. Placer reported a death Saturday, one Friday and two deaths on each of last Tuesday and Wednesday.
There are 59 people hospitalized in the county being treated specifically for COVID-19, 13 of whom are in ICUs.
El Dorado County has reported 871 COVID-19 cases and two deaths, with 22 new cases reported Tuesday afternoon. A week ago Monday, the county reported its second COVID-19 death. There were no patients infected with the virus in hospitals in the county Tuesday. 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 1,157 cases and seven deaths. Seventeen people are being hospitalized there, four of whom are in the ICU.
In neighboring Yuba County, 786 people have been infected and four have died. On Friday, 21 new cases were reported and on Thursday, 30 more were added. Yuba has 13 residents hospitalized with the virus, two of them in the ICU.
World numbers: Almost 22 million infected, 775,000 dead
Data maintained by Johns Hopkins University shows the global total for confirmed COVID-19 cases at nearly 22 million as of Tuesday afternoon. The world death toll was over 776,000, of which more than 171,000 have been in the United States.
Brazil is next at more than 108,000 dead, followed by Mexico at over 57,000 and India at almost 52,000.
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 almost 5.5 million lab-positive COVID-19 cases, the most of any nation and about one-quarter the worldwide total.
This story was originally published August 18, 2020 at 7:53 AM.
