Coronavirus updates: Nearly 3,800 Californians died of COVID-19 in August, state says
It’s a new month in California’s battle with COVID-19.
March brought the first significant spread of coronavirus to the state, prompting an unprecedented shutdown of nonessential businesses ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom. April brought the strictest period of that shutdown. May saw restrictions loosen, and many types of businesses reopen at a hastened pace.
June saw the start of a surge in COVID-19 activity statewide, which continued into July and prompted a rollback by the Newsom administration of many of those openings. And, in the wake of that surge, August represented the deadliest month of the pandemic for the Golden State and Sacramento, but with infection and hospital figures declining significantly across the state as the month progressed.
What will September and the rest of 2020 bring?
In the immediate future, that’ll likely hinge on the impact of school campuses reopening in various parts of California, and on the state’s newly unveiled, color-coded tier system, which assesses counties’ risk levels based on their COVID-19 infection rates.
The Sacramento City Unified School District has become emblematic of the that the 2020-21 academic year will bring, especially at the K-12 level.
The district has already reported a pair of positive cases in employees, one of whom was helping distribute materials at Woodbine Elementary School last week.
And, just two days away from the start of its academic schedule, the district and its teachers union are at an impasse and will require mediation to agree upon how to proceed with district learning — which is a major balancing act for many teachers, especially those with their own children remote learning elsewhere in their homes.
The two sides disagree on how to split time between live instruction and independent work. A full schedule for Sacramento City Unified won’t go into effect until next week; this Thursday and Friday will serve as a “phase-in” period and paid professional period for teachers, with limited instruction followed by “asynchronous work,” according to an email sent to parents Monday evening.
Sacramento is one of about three dozen “purple” counties that the state has classified as having “widespread” COVID-19 spread, according to a new system that Newsom announced late last week as a replacement of the watchlist. It’s the most stringent of the four tiers, with the tightest restrictions on businesses, schools, places of worship and other gathering places.
To date, more than 707,000 Californians have tested positive for COVID-19 and over 13,000 have died from the respiratory disease, the California Department of Public Health reported Tuesday.
The morning’s addition of only 3,712 new positive cases statewide marks the smallest one-day increase since June 16; and, for the first time since late June, the state’s rolling average test positivity rate is below 5%, at 4.9% over the past week.
Extent of deadly August still emerging in data
August unquestionably had the highest total of confirmed COVID-19 deaths of any month during the pandemic for both California and Sacramento County, even with figures from the final days of the month not yet fully accounted for.
Data from CDPH shows a total of 3,794 reported COVID-19 deaths from Aug. 1 to Aug. 31, about 21% more than the 3,134 confirmed for July.
The increase has been almost twice as bad, proportionally, in Sacramento County, where public health officials’ COVID-19 data dashboard shows 120 coronavirus fatalities with a date of death between Aug. 1 and Aug. 27. With four days of death tallies not yet reported for the calendar month, August has already had 40% more virus deaths than July, when 85 died across the county. Those two months account for more than two-thirds of the pandemic’s all-time death toll for the county, which is 296 as of Tuesday.
Also staggering is the death count for the city of Sacramento, population roughly 500,000, where 175 total residents have died among just over 11,000 infections, the county said Tuesday. California’s capital reached the 100-death milestone in early August, close to five months after its first confirmed COVID-19 death. The next 75 fatalities took only three weeks.
The good news, for both Sacramento and the state as a whole, is hospitalization rates have declined steadily and significantly in the weeks since late July. California’s total fell from a peak of 7,170 confirmed cases in hospital beds and 2,058 in the ICU as of July 21 to fewer than 3,900 hospitalized and under 1,200 in the ICU as of Tuesday’s data update.
Given the time it takes for hospitalizations to turn into fatalities in the most severe virus cases, officials are hopeful that a similar downward trend for the latter metric will also drop within the coming days or weeks.
In the Sacramento region, hospitalization and intensive care unit numbers are down both in Sacramento County and neighboring Placer County. Sacramento’s hospitalization total is now at 196 patients with 52 in ICUs, down from a late July peak of about 280 and 90, respectively.
In Placer County, a peak of close to 70 hospitalized coronavirus patients in early August has fallen to 39, though 12 in an ICU is still near an all-time high. Placer has a number of major hospitals along the county line, which serve many Sacramento residents.
August also represents Placer’s deadliest month of the pandemic so far, with 16 of its 33 all-time resident fatalities.
COVID-19 quarantine makes for chaotic final legislative session
End-of-session work in the California Senate turned tense Monday evening, when all but one Republican were limited to remote participation due to a coronavirus-related quarantine order, complicating matters as time to act on policy measures ticked away.
Jim Nielsen of Gerber was the only Republican senator allowed in the chamber, because he did not attend a caucus meeting last week that included Sen. Brian Jones, who tested positive for COVID-19. Remaining GOP senators logged in virtually and speaking through video chat complained of technical glitches, as a midnight deadline loomed.
Exchanges also grew heated a day earlier between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, with those joining remotely on several occasions muting and unmuting themselves during votes.
Latest Sacramento-area numbers: Six-county region close to 400 deaths
Sacramento County’s infection totals have remained steady since the surge that started in June, but some of its neighbors that make up the rest of the six-county region — El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba — have seen declines in new cases.
The six counties, as of Tuesday morning, combined for 399 COVID-19 deaths among more than 27,000 lab-confirmed infections.
Sacramento County surpassed 18,000 positive cases Monday and reached 296 deaths with Tuesday’s update from the local health office, which added another 234 cases Tuesday for an all-time total of 18,286. Of the infection total, health officials estimate about 14,271 patients have recovered, meaning more than 3,500 cases are considered active.
Yolo County health officials have reported a total of 2,438 COVID-19 cases and 52 deaths. The county reported 18 new cases and no new deaths after reporting 34 new cases on Monday, 52 new cases on Sunday and 25 new cases on Saturday. The county on Thursday reported two new deaths due to the virus. Six patients in the county were hospitalized Tuesday morning; three of them in ICUs, according to state data. The county had six ICU beds remaining. The county has seen outbreaks at several long-term care facilities, which account for 141 of the total number of cases and 26 of the deaths.
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 died. The facility will close permanently this month.
Placer County has reported a total of 3,027 COVID-19 cases and 33 deaths due to the virus. The county reported 24 new cases Tuesday after reporting 30 new cases and one new death Monday. On Sunday, 26 new cases were reported. There were 39 people hospitalized in the county on Tuesday morning; 12 of them were being treated in ICUs, according to state data. The county had 29 ICU beds available.
The county was removed from the state’s regional coronavirus watchlist, owing to its relatively low transmission rate, but is in the purple “substantial” tier under the new system. The county health office, in a detailed COVID-19 update posted last Friday, said it was placed there due to the inclusion of data from early August; officials expect easing of restrictions Sept. 8 “if trends continue in the right direction.”
Placer County said it has learned from CDPH that schools will still be allowed to resume on-campus learning Tuesday, as removal from the watchlist had indicated earlier.
El Dorado County has reported a total of 973 COVID-19 cases and two deaths due to the virus. The county reported six new cases on Tuesday and no new deaths after reporting 16 new cases on Monday. There were no hospitalized patients infected with the virus in the county on Tuesday. The county had 13 ICU beds available, according to state data.
Sutter County has reported a total of 1,409 cases and 10 deaths as of Monday evening. Ten people are currently being hospitalized, with three in the ICU.
In neighboring Yuba County, 927 people have been infected and six have died. Yuba added 12 new cases Monday. Six people in Yuba County are being hospitalized, with one in the ICU.
World surpasses 850,000 total COVID-19 deaths
The global death toll for COVID-19 has exceed 852,000, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University as of Tuesday afternoon. Over 184,000 of those come in the United States, which for several weeks has accounted for more than one-fifth of the worldwide death toll.
The United States also recently hit a milestone of 6 million total infections, also more than one-fifth the global total of 25.5 million, according to Johns Hopkins tracking data.
Brazil is next in both death toll and cases, with over 3.9 million infections and 121,000 deaths. India is third in reported infections with more than 3.6 million infections and in deaths at more than 65,000. Over 64,000 have also died in Mexico, where the reported infection total is only about 600,000. Russia is nearing 1 million infections, but has reported only 17,000 deaths.
After Mexico in terms of death toll are the United Kingdom at about 41,500, Italy at nearly 35,500, France at over 30,000, Spain at more than 29,000, Peru at just under 29,000, Iran at 21,600 and Colombia closing in on 20,000.
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 September 1, 2020 at 11:40 AM.
