Coronavirus updates: August is Sacramento’s deadliest month of pandemic, by far
New guidance came from California health officials earlier this week regarding limited school campuses openings, and more may soon be on the way as the state’s coronavirus numbers continue along their improving trend.
State Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly in a Tuesday news briefing said the state was once again bending the pandemic’s growth curve, a phrase that’s scarcely been used in an affirmative sense since a surge in COVID-19 activity started in late June and continued to plague the state with increasing infection totals, hospitalizations and deaths throughout July.
Between late July and late August, the concurrent hospitalization total for COVID-19 has dropped nearly 40%, from close to 7,200 patients in beds with the virus on July 21 to fewer than 4,300 as of a Thursday update. The total for those in intensive care units has dropped over 33% in the same window, from over 2,050 down to under 1,350.
The state has recorded more than 683,000 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, the California Department of Public Health said Thursday.
Progress has been slower to show itself in the death data, with another 143 new fatalities reported statewide Thursday morning and the rolling average declining slower than hospitalization. To date, the state reports 12,550 deaths from the respiratory disease.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday also announced a contract with Massachusetts-based diagnostics company PerkinElmer which could more than double California’s capacity for testing and shrink the turnaround time for results.
The state currently conducts over 100,000 tests per day, having processed close to 11 million total over the course of the pandemic, but the contract would boost California by more than 150,000 a day. It’d drop the time to get results to a 24-to-48-hour window, down from the current average of about five to seven days.
More testing and faster receipt of results is seen as a key component of limiting spread of the highly contagious virus. Improvements in those areas expedite isolation, quarantine and contact tracing procedures, all of which are intended to reduce exposure.
In the first half of July, Newsom and the state rolled back reopenings for businesses, places of worship and other types of gathering places in response to those spiking numbers; later in the month, they announced that individual counties would have to be off the CDPH watchlist for two straight weeks before allowing K-12 schools to open, with a waiver process and limited exemptions involving “cohorts” detailed since then.
Most state-issued COVID-19 mandates and recommendations to this point have been business-facing, though in mid-June masks were made mandatory in most indoor public spaces statewide.
Ghaly suggested Tuesday the state’s expanded guidance coming later in the week would include best practices for limiting spread of the virus among friend groups and family members.
August already Sacramento’s deadliest month; local response ramping up
Public health officials in updates to Sacramento County’s COVID-19 data dashboard continue to increase the death toll on a daily basis. The virus as of Thursday morning has killed at least 265 county residents. It claimed its first resident nearly six months ago in early March.
In the wake of the spike in infections that started earlier in the summer, August is now Sacramento County’s deadliest month of the pandemic.
Sorted by date of death, the local health office says at least 92 county residents have died in the first 22 days of August, a figure likely to increase as more causes of death are confirmed in the coming days and weeks.
August’s death toll, averaging more than four a day, already surpasses the entire month of July, when 85 died. Both months saw more county residents die than the span of March (10), April (34), May (18) and June (18) combined. Eight of the 265 total deaths are not yet accounted for in the county’s “date of death” timeline chart.
Of the 265 deaths, 163 have come in the capital city, as well as over 10,000 of 16,909 lab-confirmed infections reported as of Wednesday. The city hit the 100-death milestone Aug. 6, almost five months after its first reported fatality; it took just three weeks to make it nearly two-thirds of the way to the next hundred.
The city of Sacramento has about 500,000 residents, making up about one-third of the county’s total populace.
Both the city and the county have recently approved, discussed or formally allocated funding for a number of COVID-19 mitigation measures this month.
On Tuesday, the Sacramento City Council approved the last $10 million of its $89 million federal stimulus funding. That sum came from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.
Of that $89 million: $22.1 million will go to small business recovery; $20 million will go to arts and tourism sector; $18.7 million will go to youth and workforce training programs, including $2.25 million in youth enrichment for teens who completed virus-related service projects; $15.6 million for homelessness and rehousing issues; $4.6 million for social services, including a $1.4 million daycare program for essential workers; and $10.3 million for other projects, including citywide operational response such as sanitation and telework costs and $250,000 for city emergency supplies.
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The county, which was criticized earlier this month after it emerged that most of its federal CARES Act funding that had been allocated went to sheriff’s payroll, recently approved a $13.5 million contract with Folsom-based StemExpress, a biotech company that promises to speed up testing turnaround time to three days or quicker.
The county Board of Supervisors last week also freed up $45 million of CARES Act money for its health department to boost virus prevention efforts. One novel, experimental idea in consideration by county health officials is a plan that would pay some infected people $1,000 to get them to stay home from work for two weeks.
Latest Sacramento-area numbers: More than 25,000 total infections to date
The six-county Sacramento region — Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo and the Yuba-Sutter bi-county area — has combined for more than 25,000 lab-positive cases and 362 fatalities.
Sacramento County reports a total of 16,909 lab-positive cases and 265 deaths from COVID-19, with nearly 300 new cases reported Tuesday followed by 119 Wednesday and 167 Thursday.
State data show Sacramento County with 215 COVID-19 patients hospitalized as of Thursday’s update, including 59 in ICUs. Those figures are down from respective highs of about 280 and 91 in late July. The county maintains 111 available ICU beds.
Yolo County health officials have reported a total of 2,335 COVID-19 cases and 51 deaths. The county reported 25 new cases on Saturday and 2 new deaths were reported on Thursday. There were seven patients in hospitals in the county Thursday, four of whom were in ICUs, according to state data. The county has seven ICU beds remaining.
Placer County has reported 2,947 COVID-19 cases and 32 deaths as of Saturday’s update, adding 48 new cases. The county’s relatively low rate of transmission allowed it to be taken off of the state’s watchlist last week. There were 40 people hospitalized in the county being treated specifically for COVID-19 as of Thursday, 14 of them in ICUs.
El Dorado County has reported a total of 942 COVID-19 cases, including seven new cases Thursday and three new cases Wednesday. On Aug. 10, the county reported its second COVID-19 death. State data show one one patient infected with the virus in an El Dorado hospital, in an intensive care unit on Thursday. The county has nine available ICU beds.
Sutter County has reported a total of 1,325 cases and eight deaths as of Thursday, with one new fatality reported over the weekend. The county reported 15 new cases Wednesday evening. Sutter says 15 people infected with the virus were being hospitalized in the county as of that time, two of them in an ICU.
Sutter’s neighbor Yuba County reported 10 new cases and one new fatality Wednesday, for totals of 893 infected and six dead during the pandemic. Ten are hospitalized in Yuba County with the virus, two of them in the ICU.
Worldwide infection total past 24 million; 180,000 dead in US
More than 24.3 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 worldwide, and over 828,000 of them have died, data maintained by Johns Hopkins University showed Thursday afternoon.
The United States crossed over 180,000 deaths Thursday morning. The U.S. has also reported by far the highest number of cases at nearly 5.86 million; Brazil and India are next highest at 3.7 million and 3.3 million, respectively. No other country has reached 1 million cases, according to Johns Hopkins.
Brazil is second in the death toll at more than 117,000, followed by Mexico at over 62,000 and India at over 60,000.
The United Kingdom’s count early last week 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 41,500 COVID-19 deaths.
More than 35,000 have died in Italy, over 30,000 in France, almost 29,000 in Spain, over 28,000 in Peru and over 21,000 in Iran. Colombia has a death toll of more than 18,000, while Russia’s is approaching 17,000, according to Johns Hopkins. South Africa has more than 13,500 dead and Chile is above 11,000. Belgium, Germany and Canada have recorded more than 9,000 fatalities.
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 August 27, 2020 at 11:54 AM.
