Coronavirus updates: As US cases spike, California COVID-19 rates still trending low
New coronavirus infections and fatalities have been spiking worldwide and across the United States, but COVID-19 activity has stayed comparatively low in California, where most key figures are either slowly declining or plateauing.
Statewide rates of new infections and deaths are the lowest they’ve been in more than three months. Over the past two weeks, California averaged 69.8 deaths and 3,162 new cases per day, according to data updated Sunday by the state health department. Daily deaths hadn’t been below 70 since July 8, and infections are at their lowest point since June 19, the last day of spring.
There are almost 5,000 fewer COVID-19 patients in California hospitals now than during the state’s peak over the summer. The total has trimmed down to fewer than 2,200, from a high of 7,170 on July 21, according to the California Department of Public Health. Only 604 coronavirus patients were in intensive care as of Monday, CDPH said, compared to a peak of over 2,000.
And in the past two weeks, 2.6% of all diagnostic tests performed for the coronavirus have returned positive, down from a summer high of 7.5%, further reflecting slower spread of the highly contagious respiratory disease.
The state of 40 million people accounts for a little over 16,500 of the nation’s nearly 215,000 total reported virus deaths, and just over 850,000 of its 7.7 million lab-confirmed cases through Monday morning, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Texas recently overtook California as No. 2 in death toll, closing in on 17,000 despite having roughly 75% as many residents. Florida just surpassed 15,000 deaths despite having a little over half California’s population. All three remain below the 33,000 fatalities suffered in New York state, a spring epicenter for the pandemic.
More than 50,000 new cases a day were reported across the U.S. for four straight days, Wednesday through Saturday, after that mark had been surpassed just three times between Aug. 15 and the start of last week, Johns Hopkins data show.
Last Friday set a worldwide record for daily new cases, with more than 350,000 reported globally, the World Health Organization said.
New rules for households to socialize
California is easing its coronavirus restrictions to allow up to three households to socialize outdoors, an expansion of rules aimed at people tempted to have even larger gatherings around Halloween, Thanksgiving and end-of-year holidays, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday.
Three households can gather so long as they wear masks and follow other safety precautions designed to stem the spread of the virus, under the new guidelines from the California Department of Public Health. State health officials previously discouraged gatherings outside of a single household.
The goal is not to encourage larger gatherings, Newsom said, but to recognize the increasing pressure for get-togethers and provide ways for people to act appropriately. There’s no limit on the number of people within any three households, though state officials say smaller is better.
Dr. Mark Ghaly, the state’s Health and Human Services secretary, said the guidelines are meant to recognize that many close friends and relatives have been apart a long time and want to be together.
All such gatherings should be outdoors, although it’s OK for guests to use indoor restrooms as long as they are frequently sanitized.
Where is California in its reopening effort?
Tuesday will mark six weeks since California began its second attempt at gradual economic reopening, this time using a tiered framework to further slow the process.
The previous effort to reopen, in late spring, lasted roughly six weeks. Businesses, places of worship and other activities started to open in mid-May, before Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state hit pause in late June, then reversed course in early July due to surging hospitalization and infection rates statewide.
Things are faring better this time around by the numbers, but public health officials and state leaders continue to preach diligence and cautious optimism, warning that becoming too lax in social distancing and mask protocols will result in restrictions tightening back up.
Tighter restrictions were imposed last week on two adjacent counties, Shasta and Tehama. The pair became the first counties within the news system to be demoted to a stricter tier, due to new daily infections spiking for two straight weeks.
The current reopening system uses four color-coded tiers — purple, red, orange and yellow, from most to least restrictive — to determine what can be open and how tight measures like capacity limits must be. The jump from purple to red tier is the biggest one, allowing restaurant dining rooms, places of worship, gyms, movie theaters and more to open for indoor operations. After two weeks in the red tier, counties may also allow K-12 school districts to reopen for on-campus learning.
To start this week, there are 16 counties in the purple tier, including the state’s most populous in Los Angeles; 24 in the red tier, including Sacramento, Placer, Yolo and Yuba; 11 in the orange tier, almost all of them sparsely populated foothill counties with the notable exception of San Francisco; and seven small, sparsely populated counties in the northern half of the state are in the yellow tier.
Tiers for California’s 58 counties are updated weekly on Tuesdays, and the determination is now made based on three metrics. CDPH looks at counties’ daily rate of new cases and their test rate positivity percentages. And starting last week, the state takes into account a “health equity” metric.
The equity requirement means that California’s largest 35 counties by population must demonstrate that test positivity rates within disadvantaged neighborhoods — defined empirically as the census tracts that within the bottom quartile of a state composite score known as the Healthy Places Index — have also been brought below the same positivity thresholds that county populations at large must reach, with some small margin of error allowed.
The health equity metric is a requirement to move forward but failure to meet it will not result in demotion, the state says. Last week, 23 applicable counties met the mark, including all in the six-county Sacramento region. The 12 that did not were Contra Costa, Fresno, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Shasta and Sonoma counties.
Folsom asks for accelerated reopening
Business owners and city leaders in Folsom, an affluent suburb on the eastern edge of Sacramento County, are urging Newsom to reconsider countywide reopening protocols to give cities like theirs more latitude in the process.
In a letter to the governor, city officials called Folsom “a perfect example” of “a countywide structure that fails to take into account vastly different data points within the same county.”
Folsom is at a particular disadvantage geographically. Sacramento County moved into the red tier last month, which means businesses like restaurants can open their doors once again. But one freeway exit east along Highway 50, El Dorado Hills can open restaurants and several other types of businesses at double the capacity limit of Folsom because El Dorado County is in the orange tier, one step better than Sacramento County.
“This disparity is the result of a reopening framework that ignores the similarities between contiguous communities like Folsom and El Dorado Hills, and instead opts to base these critical decisions on arbitrary county lines,” read the letter from Folsom’s elected officials.
The city has a slightly lower infection rate than El Dorado Hills, which is a shorter drive away from Folsom than any other incorporated city in Sacramento County. Folsom also has less than half as many total cases to date as Rancho Cordova, a suburban city of similar population a few freeway exits the other direction, Sacramento County health data show.
Sacramento-area numbers: Death toll slowly rising toward 600
The six-county region of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba has combined for over 34,000 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases and at least 591 fatalities as of Monday morning.
Sacramento County health officials have reported a total of 23,850 cases and 458 deaths, adding a three-day total of 201 new cases Monday. The county estimates that a little over 1,700 of these cases can be considered active, less than half the peak of around 3,600 active infections reported during the summer.
There were 77 patients in Sacramento County hospitals with confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 25 in intensive care units, according to state data updated Monday morning. That’s the county’s lowest hospitalization total since June 27 and lowest ICU count since June 28.
Close to two-thirds of the county’s death toll has come since the start of August, with 179 dying of the disease that month and at least 101 more deaths in September, with additional cause-of-death investigations continuing to increase the latter month’s total. In July, 88 coronavirus patients reportedly died.
Through the first eight days of October, at least 10 Sacramento County residents have died of COVID-19, according to health officials. The most recent weekly average test positivity rate reported by the county is 2.8%, down significantly from its peak of almost 9% in August.
Sacramento County remains in the red tier. Its earliest possible date for promotion to the orange tier is Oct. 20, but only if its metrics meet orange criteria both this week and next.
Yolo County, which joined Sacramento in the less restrictive red tier in late September, has reported just under 3,000 infections. Health officials have received positive coronavirus test results from 2,954 patients, and have reported 56 people dead of COVID-19. The county added 13 new cases Saturday and 14 on Sunday.
Yolo had five cases in hospital beds, including two in ICUs, according to state data Monday morning.
Yolo enters this week well-positioned to enter the orange tier in Tuesday’s update from the state, if patterns from last week’s assessment hold.
Placer County has reported 3,750 total infections and 51 deaths. Health officials consider 3,466 of these cases to be likely recovered, which means fewer than 300 cases are deemed active.
The state reports 19 hospitalized patients in Placer County and three in ICUs as of Monday.
Placer County, like Yolo, remains in the red tier but is in good shape to promote to orange this week.
El Dorado County is the only county in the capital region currently in the state’s orange tier. It’s on a short list of California counties with single-digit death tolls, reporting just four since the start of the pandemic. Health officials have reported a total of 1,239 infections, 494 of which are from the Lake Tahoe area, still the leading site of infection in the county.
Two patients are hospitalized in El Dorado County, both in the ICU, according to state data.
Sutter County remains in the state’s most restrictive purple tier due to widespread viral activity. There, 1,775 people have tested positive for coronavirus and 12 have died, according to data last updated Friday. One person is hospitalized with COVID-19. Four new cases were reported Friday, and county officials say that just 30 cases are still active.
Yuba County officials have reported 1,227 infections and 10 dead. Six patients are hospitalized and five new cases were reported Friday. Health officials say 38 of Yuba County’s cases are still active.
This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 8:47 AM.
