Coronavirus updates: Big challenges ahead as California numbers show problem areas
Though there are still a few days’ worth of numbers to come, October will mark California’s steadiest month since May in terms of COVID-19 activity.
But with statewide infection figures showing some recent signs of uptick, cases surging dramatically at the national level and a gauntlet of challenging moments fast approaching in the final weeks of 2020, we are entering an increasingly critical period in the pandemic.
Halloween, the end of Daylight Saving Time and a presidential election are all coming in the next five days.
Holiday gatherings, trick-or-treating that might proceed despite health officials’ vehement discouragement and in-person voting Tuesday are all likely to present opportunities for the highly contagious virus to spread widely. And this Sunday’s time change, which will bring darkness and cooler temperatures one hour earlier into evenings, will likely drive more people to gather indoors, where health experts say the risk of contracting the virus is much higher.
Weeks after those hurdles will be Thanksgiving, followed by the winter holidays, all of which will tempt more get togethers while temperatures continue to drop.
It has been nearly eight months since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Calls for increased diligence from local, state and national health officials and government leaders have grown louder as the U.S. faces record-setting new case totals and sees hospitals once again overwhelmed in some parts of the country.
Thursday marks 32 weeks since Gov. Gavin Newsom issued his stay-at-home order, which brought sectors of the economy considered nonessential to a screeching halt, along with many other elements of public life — from in-person church worship to on-campus schooling.
The stay-at-home order has been adjusted, allowing counties with improving COVID-19 metrics to proceed a varying speeds of reopening, but it has never been lifted.
To date, the state has reported nearly 913,000 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 17,500 deaths from the disease.
COVID-19 in October: Success, or calm before the storm?
California will have added about 100,000 new lab-confirmed cases for October by the time it ends, with a rolling daily average that stayed between 3,100 and 3,400 for most of the month before recently spiking back to nearly 3,900, data from the California Department of Public Health show.
Both the plateau and the more recent figure remain the state’s lowest infection rates, in terms of raw case numbers, since late June.
California has been faring even better than it did in June, though, when considering that the state is now conducting nearly twice as many daily tests. The statewide positivity rate reflects reduced spread: throughout October, the percentage of tests returning positive for COVID-19 stayed between 2.5% and 3% as a rolling seven-day average, the best that figure has been since CDPH started keeping track. The rate jumped from 4.4% to 6.3% during the second half of June and peaked around 7.5% during the summer surge.
Hospital rates have also stayed very steady this month, state data show. The concurrent total of hospitalized patients who’ve tested positive for COVID-19 has hovered between about 2,200 and 2,350, while the number in intensive care units has stayed between 600 and 680, from Oct. 1 through Oct. 28. Each range is the state’s lowest dating back to the start of April.
And deaths, which have trended down since peaking in mid-August, steadily declined to an average of about 60 a day by mid-October, which is close to the same rate observed in the pre-summer surge period.
But October hasn’t been a universal success story, and there have been indicators that COVID-19 has been back on the rise since the middle of the month.
In the Sacramento region, Placer County’s health director and interim health officer Dr. Robert Oldham recently said that 16% of Placer residents who’ve tested positive this month said they attended a large gathering, the highest rate of any month in the pandemic. Placer County earlier this week recently reported its highest one-day infection increase since Sept. 1. A total of 48 new cases emerged last Friday, as determined by episode date — more than double the daily average from earlier in October.
A Sacramento Bee analysis this week found new infections and test positivity rates have risen, in the short-term but significantly, in Sacramento, Placer and Yolo counties in recent weeks. Given the typical timeline for progression for the disease, it’ll likely take until at least early November for data to reflect whether the spike is followed by a related uptick in hospitalizations and/or deaths.
And as has been the case throughout the health crisis, long-term care facilities that cater to California’s oldest and most vulnerable population have continued to report large, deadly outbreaks, including severe clusters in Sacramento and Yolo counties.
Meanwhile, health officials in Los Angeles County, the state’s most populous with 10 million people and one of nine counties still in California’s strictest purple tier, recently reported a large spike in new infections they say could be linked to too many people gathering to watch sporting events on TV or taking to the streets to celebrate.
A little more than two weeks apart, the L.A. Lakers won the NBA championship and then the Dodgers won the World Series, prompting local reminders to revel responsibly.
Flu and COVID-19 co-infection reported
Solano County announced Thursday that it had its first resident test positive for COVID-19 and seasonal influenza at the same time. The patient is under age 65, the county said in a news release.
The case appears to be one of California’s first reported flu and COVID-19 co-infections this flu season.
Information about the interplay between influenza and COVID-19 remains limited because the latter is a novel virus, but both are respiratory diseases that weaken the immune system, especially in older adults, and each can result in hospitalization in severe cases.
“Symptoms of the flu can be like early symptoms of COVID-19, meaning people with flu symptoms may require a COVID-19 test and need to stay home from work and isolate while awaiting their results,” said Dr. Bela Matyas, Solano County’s health officer, in a statement.
Matyas and other health leaders continue to urge people to get their flu shots this year, and to do so as soon as possible, because it can take two weeks for the flu vaccine to become effective.
Capital region numbers: 500 dead in Sacramento County
The six-county Sacramento region has now combined for 645 reported COVID-19 deaths and more than 38,000 confirmed infections over the course of the pandemic, with 500 dead in Sacramento County and 145 in five neighboring counties.
Sacramento County has recorded a total of 26,018 lab-positive cases and 500 deaths during the pandemic. Health officials added 136 cases Thursday, 132 on Wednesday and 149 on Tuesday.
The county has now reported at least 36 deaths from Oct. 1 through Oct. 24, surpassing April’s total of 34 for fourth-most in a month. Continued death confirmations for September have pushed that month’s death toll to 116, according to the local health office. Nearly 180 county residents died in August, after 87 died in July.
Hospitalizations in Sacramento are at 83, according to state data updated Thursday, which is close to the rolling two-week average of 84, near which the county has plateaued. The number of ICU patients, after decreasing to 12 on Wednesday, bumped back up to 14 on Thursday.
Sacramento is in the red tier.
Yolo County, which joined Sacramento in the red tier in late September, has reported 3,250 total infections and 60 deaths from COVID-19. Yolo reported one new death Wednesday after one Sunday and two last week. The county added 16 new cases Thursday.
Yolo has nine patients in hospitals with COVID-19 as of Thursday, up from seven on Tuesday. That includes four in ICUs, an increase of one, state data show.
Placer County, which surpassed 4,000 all-time infections last week, reported five deaths last week and two more Thursday for an all-time total of 59 fatalities. The county has now reported 4,290 cases since the start of the pandemic. It added 42 cases Thursday after 41 on Wednesday.
Placer says on its hospitalization dashboard that it has 19 patients in hospital beds with COVID-19 and four in ICUs.
Placer is in the orange tier.
El Dorado County is one of a small number of counties with a single-digit death toll, with just four fatalities since the start of the pandemic. Health officials have reported a total of 1,380 infections, adding 12 on Thursday.
El Dorado has one patient hospitalized and in an ICU as of Thursday.
The county remains in the orange tier.
Sutter County health officials have reported a total of 1,897 people positive for coronavirus and 12 dead, with data last updated Thursday. Five people were hospitalized with COVID-19, but none of them were in the ICU, according to county health officials.
Yuba County officials have reported a total of 1,346 infections and 10 deaths. Yuba has four patients hospitalized, but not in an ICU.
Sutter and Yuba are both in the red tier.
US, world numbers: Global death toll nearing 1.2 million
New COVID-19 infections set another daily high Wednesday: More than 530,000 new lab-confirmed cases were reported worldwide, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
That breaks a record set just two days earlier, of 525,000 on Monday. Over 44.8 million cases have now been reported during the pandemic.
Cases are surging in numerous parts of the world, with intense spikes in the U.S. Midwest, Europe, South America and India.
The United States has surpassed 228,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths, still nearly 20% of the global death toll, which is now over 1,178,000, according to Johns Hopkins. The nation has reported more than 8.9 million cases.
Next in terms of death toll are Brazil at 158,000, India at 120,000 and Mexico at 90,000. Four European nations are next: the United Kingdom at nearly 46,000, Italy at more than 38,000, France at just over 36,000 and Spain at more than 35,500 dead. After that are Peru and Iran, each at just over 34,000, and Colombia and Argentina, each above 30,000. Russia has reported more than 27,000 COVID-19 deaths, and South Africa is nearing 20,000.
By infections, India follows the U.S. after recently surpassing 8 million confirmed cases. Brazil is closing in on 5.5 million, and Russia has reported nearly 1.6 million. Argentina, Colombia, France and Spain have all reported more than 1 million cases. The United Kingdom is approaching 970,000.
This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 9:32 AM.
