Coronavirus updates: Californians could see financial relief, more testing capacity soon
California’s jobless residents will soon see an extra $300 coming to them every week with their unemployment checks as the state prepares to send out benefits to those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Residents who provide self-certification that they are unemployed or partially unemployed due to the coronavirus pandemic will receive the check starting Sept. 7. The rollout will come in phases, leading some to receive the benefit two weeks later than others.
The extra money, ordered by President Donald Trump’s executive action, is intended to replace the federal $600 weekly stimulus check that expired in July. After delays in agreeing on a new stimulus plan, the president ordered the reduced stimulus, asking states to contribute $100 more, for a $400 weekly total. California and some other states balked at paying the extra $100 due to major losses of revenue during the pandemic.
As the state continues to process immense numbers of unemployment claims, people receiving more than $100 through their jobless claim will soon receive the additional benefit. Over 521,074 claims were filed in California last week, with the state paying out $4.3 billion.
California will receive $4.5 billion for the Lost Wages Assistance Program, with the state’s Employment Development Department saying that the weekly benefit will last for at least three weeks.
The average Californian has been receiving $347 a week in state benefits, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The state’s unemployment rate in July, the latest data available, was 13.3%.
As the pandemic continues to affect the state’s economy and unemployment, cases of the disease increase daily.
The state has recorded more than 688,000 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, the California Department of Public Health said Friday morning. The state added 5,329 cases as of Friday.
There has been a decline in the number of people dying from the disease, with 140 new fatalities reported statewide as of Friday morning and the rolling average has dropped for hospitalizations. To date, the state reports 12,690 deaths from the respiratory disease.
School opening guidelines updated as testing capacity grows
New guidance came from California health officials earlier this week regarding limited school campus openings, and more may soon be on the way as the state’s coronavirus numbers continue along an 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 patients 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.
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’s tests by more than 150,000 a day. It would 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-focused, 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
Public health officials in updates to Sacramento County’s COVID-19 data dashboard continue to report new deaths on a daily basis. The virus as of Friday morning has killed at least 274 county residents, up from 265 on Thursday. 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 274 deaths, 169 have come in the capital city, as well as over 10,000 of 17,150 lab-confirmed infections reported as of Friday. Friday’s update added 241 new cases to the total. 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 reports 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 375 fatalities.
Sacramento County reports a total of 17,150 lab-positive cases and 274 deaths from COVID-19, with 300 new cases reported Tuesday followed by 119 Wednesday, 167 Thursday and 241 Friday. Nine new deaths were reported Friday.
State data show Sacramento County with 207 COVID-19 patients hospitalized as of Friday’s update, including 55 in ICUs. Those figures are down from respective highs of about 280 and 91 in late July. The county maintains 110 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 Saturday; 2 new deaths were reported on Thursday. There were six patients in hospitals in the county Friday, one of whom was in an ICU, according to state data. The county has 12 ICU beds remaining.
Placer County has reported 2,947 COVID-19 cases and 32 deaths as of Saturday, 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 41 people hospitalized in the county being treated specifically for COVID-19 as of Friday, and 14 of them are in ICUs. The county has 27 ICU beds remaining.
El Dorado County has reported a total of 951 COVID-19 cases, including nine new cases Friday, 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 1,368 cases and 10 deaths as of Friday, with two new fatalities reported from Thursday. The county reported 21 new cases Friday and the same amount on Thursday. Sutter officials say 14 people infected with the virus were being hospitalized in the county as of that time, four of them in an ICU.
Sutter’s neighbor Yuba County reported nine new cases and no new fatalities Friday, for totals of 909 infected and six dead during the pandemic as of Friday. The county had one new death on Wednesday and reported eight new cases Thursday. Eleven are hospitalized in Yuba County with the virus, two of them in the ICU.
Worldwide infection total past 24 million; over 180,000 dead in US
Almost 24.8 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 worldwide, and over 838,000 of them have died, data maintained by Johns Hopkins University showed Friday morning.
The United States crossed over 180,000 deaths Thursday morning, reaching 182,000 by Saturday morning. The U.S. has also reported by far the highest number of cases at over 5.9 million; Brazil and India are next highest at over 3.8 million and 3.4 million, respectively. No other country has reached 1 million cases, according to Johns Hopkins, though Russia nears the threshold.
Brazil is second in the death toll at more than 119,000, followed by Mexico at over 63,000 and India at over 62,000.
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, more than 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 28, 2020 at 10:05 AM with the headline "Coronavirus updates: Californians could see financial relief, more testing capacity soon."
