City of Sacramento records 200th death from coronavirus, as hospital numbers improve
Sacramento has eclipsed another troubling milestone in the coronavirus pandemic: more than 200 residents of the capital city have died from COVID-19.
The official death toll for the city of about 500,000 people is now 202, according to a Monday morning update to Sacramento County’s public health dashboard for the highly contagious respiratory disease.
The pace of COVID-19 deaths increased furiously last month in both the city and the county, where new infections and hospitalizations spiked from late June through early August.
The capital city reached 100 deaths in early August, almost five months after its first fatality was confirmed in March. The next 100 reported deaths took just a little over five weeks.
August proved by far the deadliest month of the pandemic for Sacramento County, with the local health office now attributing 168 resident deaths to that month. At least 19 more have died in the first nine days of September. That means more than half of the county’s all-time death toll, which is now 356 in a little over six months, has come in the past six weeks.
The remaining 154 fatalities outside Sacramento city limits come from unincorporated parts of Sacramento County (75) and Sacramento’s surrounding cities of Elk Grove (33), Rancho Cordova (17), Citrus Heights (15), Galt (seven) and Folsom (six).
Sacramento County last Friday surpassed 20,000 all-time, lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19. The capital city now accounts for more than 12,000 of that total, 60% despite making up about one-third the county’s populace.
Rates of new cases and hospital admissions have fallen countywide in recent weeks, but deaths have been slower to decline. Trends in death figures in general can lag from a couple of weeks to about a month behind those other metrics because of the time it takes for severe cases of COVID-19 to result in death.
The good news, in both the capital region and across California, is that hospital figures are continuing a consistent and significant decline that began weeks ago. Over the weekend, the statewide total for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 fell below 3,000 for the first time since the end of May, and the volume of patients in intensive care units dropped beneath 1,000 for the first time since April 2.
As of Monday’s update, California is down to 2,841 hospitalized and 921 in ICUs, both the least since early April.
In Sacramento County, 129 patients were in hospitals and 47 in ICUs. Each figure is roughly half the peak observed in late July, when 281 were hospitalized with 91 in intensive care. Hospitalizations have declined steadily since early August, ICU patients since mid-August.
Because it can also take more than a week in some cases for the county to officially determine COVID-19 as the cause or significant contributing factor of death, the next few days should show with greater certainty whether September is off to a better start than August in terms of mortality, as would be expected due to the other metrics improving.
Other statewide statistics: Low positivity rate bodes well
To date, over 757,000 Californians have tested positive for COVID-19 and 14,385 have died, according to the California Department of Public Health.
Recent days have brought some of the smallest daily increases in lab-confirmed cases in nearly three months. But there has also been variation in the number of tests performed: only about 60,000 entered the system each of Wednesday and Thursday, while more than 100,000 were processed in each of the next three days, state data show.
One of the other main metrics that Gov. Gavin Newsom and California health leaders look at as an indicator of progress is test rate positivity, which is simply the percentage of diagnostic tests that return positive and controls for how many tests are performed in a given time frame.
A low percentage over an extended period despite widespread testing is a promising sign that the true rate of spread for the virus may be decreasing — or, as Newsom and others frequently phrase it, a figure that supports California is “bending the curve.” If the rate is higher, it either means the virus is still spreading very actively in communities, or the state isn’t testing enough potentially exposed individuals, or both.
The rate is down to 3.8% in the past two weeks and 3.5% in the past week at the statewide level, but there’s significant variation from county to county, including within the greater Sacramento area. The state map for counties’ metrics, which is updated weekly on Tuesdays, showed Sacramento and Yolo counties each near 7% positivity for the week ending Aug. 29. In Placer County, the rate has fallen below 5%; in El Dorado County, it’s under 2%. The Yuba-Sutter bicounty area farther north in the valley is around 9%.
The World Health Organization has stated that jurisdictions should not begin economic reopening until their test positivity is below 5%. In its new four-tier reopening system for counties, California considers test positivity rate and the number of new daily cases per 100,000 residents.
The test positivity criteria to exit the most restrictive classification, moving from the purple tier into the red one, is a rate below 8%. To move from red to orange, a county must fall below 5% positivity. For orange to yellow, it’s less than 2%. Only two sparsely populated counties, Alpine and Modoc, are in the yellow tier to start this week.
In the middle of the summer surge, California’s statewide positivity climbed to about 7.5%, staying there from early July through early August before starting to decline.
Newsom and health officials said at the time that the surge started because of too many private gatherings among friends and family members starting around late May and early June, but state and Sacramento officials also more recently credited the rolling back of business shutdowns in the first half of July — along with the mask mandate that Newsom ordered June 18, which remains in effect statewide — for the past few weeks of decline.
Sacramento region: Placer, El Dorado counties in red tier, rest in purple
Sacramento County health officials recorded 372 new cases of COVID-19 between Friday and Monday’s updates, an average of 124 per day, which is slightly lower than has been typical in recent weeks.
The infection total is now at 20,435 people, of whom local health officials estimate 17,346 are “likely recovered.” Accounting for the 356 dead, this suggests that roughly 2,700 Sacramento County residents have active coronavirus cases. This figure was below 300 in early June, but ballooned quickly amid the region’s surge in activity; the county ranged from between 3,000 and 3,600 active cases for most of the summer.
Sacramento County remains in the purple tier and, based on its recent new infection totals, won’t be moved into the red tier when the state’s list is updated Tuesday.
Yolo County health officials have reported a total of 53 COVID-19 deaths and 2,689 infections total, with 13 cases added Monday. The county’s most recent death was reported more than a week ago. There were four infected patients in hospitals in the county Monday, down from seven on Friday, with three currently in intensive care, according to state data. The county has five ICU beds available.
The county has seen outbreaks at several long-term care facilities, which account for 145 of the total cases and 26 of the deaths. Yolo County, like Sacramento County, is coded purple.
Placer County has reported a total of 3,301 cases and 39 deaths, reporting nine new infections Monday for one of the lowest figures in recent weeks. The county reported its most recent death Saturday. There are 28 people hospitalized due to COVID-19 in the county, and the ICU count has decreased to nine. The hospitalized total had plateaued at around 65 in early-to-mid August before declining sharply; the ICU total peaked at 16 on Aug. 25. Placer County was promoted from the purple tier to the red tier last week.
El Dorado County has reported 1,046 COVID-19 cases and three deaths due to the virus after adding 12 new cases over the weekend and one new fatality Thursday. Two infected patients are in intensive care at a hospital in the county, according to state data. The county has six ICU beds available. El Dorado County has been coded red by state health officials.
Sutter County has reported a total of 1,587 COVID-19 cases and 10 deaths after reporting 13 new cases Sunday. There are 13 infected people hospitalized in the county including three in intensive care. In neighboring Yuba County, a total of 1,074 people have been infected with COVID-19 and seven have died; the county saw seven new cases added Sunday. Seven infected people in Yuba County were hospitalized as of Sunday morning, with one of them in intensive care.
Both Sutter and Yuba counties, which share a bi-county health office, are coded purple. They also each have infection rates that are slightly too high for either county to permit waivers for elementary school campuses to reopen. The requirement is less than 14 new cases per 100,000 to do so; Yuba is at 14.4 and Sutter is at 14.3 in the past two weeks, according to the Sutter County dashboard.
926,000 dead worldwide as U.S. approaches 200,000
Across the globe, over 29 million people have been infected with the coronavirus and more than 926,000 people have died as of Monday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The United States accounts for the largest share of infections and deaths of any country, with more than 6.5 million confirmed cases and over 194,000 deaths.
Brazil is the next leading nation in terms of deaths, at over 131,000. Brazil was recently surpassed in infections by India, which has over 4.8 million cases, about half a million more than Brazil. Close to 80,000 have died of COVID-19 in India. Next in terms of death toll are Mexico at about 71,000, the United Kingdom at more than 41,000 dead, Italy at over 35,000, and France and Peru each at over 30,000. Spain is also closing in on 30,000 dead.
Although Russia is the only other nation confirming more than 1 million infections, it has only reported 18,500 deaths, putting the nation at No. 12 overall.
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 14, 2020 at 12:15 PM.
