Coronavirus updates: California’s COVID-19 rates plateauing, but a few counties regress
Data continue to reflect positive progress in California’s fight to limit spread of the coronavirus, but as some parts of the state fare better than others, health officials continue to warn people not to let their guard down.
California’s hospitalization figures remain in relatively good shape, with the state health department as of Thursday reporting a little over 2,300 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in hospital beds and about 650 in the ICU.
Each are less than a third of peak totals recorded over the summer. After almost two months of consistent and steady decline starting in late July, though, both hospitalization figures have been trending for about the past two weeks on more of a “plateau,” as Gov. Gavin Newsom phrased it Monday in a news briefing.
Another key metric, test positivity rate, also appears to be plateauing, but it’s doing so at the lowest rate recorded since state health officials began keeping track.
The California Department of Public Health said Thursday that only 2.6% of diagnostic COVID-19 tests performed in the last two weeks have returned positive. When that metric drops, it suggests true spread of the virus may be decreasing significantly.
Like hospitalizations, test positivity is now roughly one-third of the peak rate observed in late July, when 7.5% of tests were returning positive.
The World Health Organization recommends a positivity rate below 5% before reopening. California uses 8% positivity as one of its thresholds for counties to improve from its most restrictive purple tier into the red tier within its current reopening framework. A rate below 5% is a requirement for the orange tier, and the least restrictive yellow tier is only available for counties with fewer than 2% of tests coming back positive. Eight counties were allowed to loosen business and indoor activity restrictions this week.
In another bit of good news, Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly said during a Tuesday news conference that the state has not seen “a connection between increased transmission and school reopening or in-person learning.”
Ghaly called this an encouraging but early sign. Schools have yet to widely reopen in numerous counties, including Sacramento and Yolo in the capital region as well as Los Angeles, the state’s most populous.
Ghaly, Newsom and local health officials continue to emphasize remaining diligent and continuing to avoid social gatherings — which they’ve blamed as a key factor in the summer surge in infections, spreading the highly infectious respiratory disease between friends and loved ones — as the state’s progress will be tested by gradual economic reopening, the continuing academic year, flu season and colder weather that’ll keep people indoors for longer time periods.
At least 16,361 Californians have died among 834,800 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to state data updated Thursday.
A dozen counties failed to meet new ‘equity’ requirement
Now for the bad news: Opposite the eight counties that got the state’s blessing for further reopening, points of concern arose for 14 others throughout California in this week’s update to the state’s tier list, coded by color. The four tiers, from most to least restrictive, are purple, red, orange and yellow.
The list, which is updated by CDPH each Tuesday, saw Shasta and Tehama counties move into more restrictive stages in the reopening process due to spiking rates of new infections, down to red and purple, respectively. Those were the first two demotions, coming in Week 5 of California’s new system.
Three other counties — El Dorado, Fresno and Riverside — also did not maintain the necessary metrics for their current tiers, and face demotion as early as next week if numbers stay deficient for a second consecutive week.
Additionally, the state health department this week implemented a new “health equity” metric to go along with the other main two reopening criteria of new infections per 100,000 residents and test positivity rate.
In its first week, 12 counties, including three listed above for other issues failed to meet the equity mark: Contra Costa, Fresno, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Shasta and Sonoma.
The equity metric is a bit more complex than the other two. In a nutshell, CDPH is requiring counties to demonstrate low viral activity in their most disadvantaged neighborhoods. The state is doing so by looking at census tracts that rank in the lowest 25% according to the state’s composite Health Places Index, and requiring that test positivity rates in those area meet, or come within a few fractions of a percentage point of meeting, the same positivity rate cutoffs required across counties as a whole.
CDPH says counties won’t be demoted to a worse tier for failing to meet the health equity requirement, but they can’t move forward, either, until they meet this mark two weeks in a row. The metric only applies to counties with more than 106,000 residents, a list made up of the 35 most populous of California’s 58 counties.
90 Sacramento County residents died of virus last month
September has overtaken July as Sacramento County’s second-deadliest month of the coronavirus crisis, according to data updated by county health officials Wednesday.
At least 90 county residents died of COVID-19 last month, a figure still continuing to grow several days into October as official death determinations from the final few days of September are added.
The month’s death toll has surpassed the 88 deaths in July. August remains by far the worst month of the ongoing pandemic in terms of local fatalities, with about 170 Sacramento County deaths in the weeks that followed the region’s most intense spikes in new infections, hospitalizations and ICU admissions.
Newsom staffer tests positive
A staff member in Newsom’s office tested positive for COVID-19 this week, prompting deep-cleaning and contact tracing.
The Governor’s Office has not identified the employee or said whether they worked in the governor’s Capitol office, but said in a statement that the employee has “not interacted with the governor or staff that routinely interacts with the governor.”
It’s unclear how many staff members may have been exposed.
The Governor’s Office also said it learned on Monday another state employee “who works in a shared workspace with some staff from the Governor’s Office” had also tested positive for the virus.
Latest Sacramento-area numbers: Nearly 600 dead
Sacramento, Yolo, Placer, El Dorado, Sutter and Yuba counties have combined for 580 COVID-19 deaths and over 34,000 infections since the coronavirus crisis began impacting the region seven months ago.
Sacramento County health officials have reported 23,523 all-time infections and 447 deaths, with 103 new cases added Thursday.
Sacramento County had 87 patients in hospital beds and 30 in intensive care units, according to state data updated Thursday. The numbers are down from peaks of about 280 hospitalized and 90 in the ICU as of late July.
Sacramento is in the red tier.
Yolo County health officials have reported a total of 56 COVID-19 deaths among 2,918 infections, reporting nine new cases Thursday after seven new cases Wednesday. There were three infected patients in Yolo County hospitals and none in ICUs, according to state data updated Thursday. The county currently has five ICU beds available.
Yolo has seen outbreaks at several long-term care facilities, which account for 151 of the total cases and 27 of its deaths. The county hasn’t reported a new case at one of those facilities since Sept. 23.
Yolo County is in the red tier and could be promoted to orange as early as next week if its infection and positivity rates remain low.
Placer County has reported a total of 3,730 cases and 51 deaths, with 20 new cases reported Thursday. The county disclosed four deaths last week. There were 13 people hospitalized specifically for COVID-19 in Placer County and none in the ICU Thursday, the county says.
Placer’s hospitalized total had plateaued at around 65 in early-to-mid August before declining sharply; the ICU total peaked at 16 on Aug. 25.
Like Yolo, Placer is on track to be promoted to the orange tier next week.
El Dorado County has reported a total of 1,232 COVID-19 cases and four deaths. The county reported 3 new cases Thursday and 13 new cases Wednesday. One infected patient was hospitalized in the county Thursday, with none requiring intensive care, according to state data. The county reported one death in July, one in August and two in September.
El Dorado is in the orange tier, but was put on notice by the state this week about falling out of that tier. If its metrics don’t return to meet orange criteria next week, the county will have to return to the red tier. That would force a few types of businesses to close while others would have tighter capacity restrictions applied.
Sutter County has reported a total of 1,770 COVID-19 cases and 12 deaths after reporting three new cases Wednesday afternoon. The county reported one death Monday. There were two infected patient hospitalized in the county, with none in intensive care, as of Wednesday, the county said.
In neighboring Yuba County, a total of 1,217 residents have been infected with COVID-19 and 10 have died, with one death reported Monday. The county reported six new cases Wednesday afternoon. There were five infected people in Yuba County hospitals Wednesday, with two of them in intensive care, the county said.
Sutter and Yuba share a health office, but Yuba County got the go-ahead to move forward into the red tier this week, while Sutter County will have to wait until at least next Tuesday.
U.S. death toll up to 212,000 as world passes 36 million infected
The United States accounts for more than 212,000 of the world’s nearly 1.06 million deaths, and nearly 7.6 million of 36.3 million global lab-confirmed infections, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Next by death toll are Brazil at 148,000, India at 105,000, Mexico at 82,000, the United Kingdom at nearly 43,000 and Italy at just over 36,000. Peru, Spain and France have each seen between about 32,500 and 33,000 residents die of the respiratory infection.
Brazil recently surpassed 5 million cases, joining the U.S. and India (6.8 million) as the only two countries anywhere near that mark. Next closest is Russia, with 1.2 million reported COVID-19 infections.
This story was originally published October 8, 2020 at 12:52 PM.
