Coronavirus updates: 11 California counties demoted in tier list, 18 at risk next week
Faced with increasing coronavirus transmission in several different parts of the state, California health officials demoted 11 counties throughout the state to tighter levels of business and activity restrictions Tuesday.
Spikes in new infections saw Amador, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Modoc, Placer, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Cruz, Siskiyou, Stanislaus and Trinity counties moved to stricter tiers.
Sacramento, San Diego and Stanislaus moved to the most-restrictive purple tier, requiring numerous businesses and activities to close down their indoor operations, including including gyms, restaurant dining and places of worship.
Amador, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Placer and Santa Cruz counties went from the orange tier to the red tier, reintroducing stricter capacity limits while forcing some indoor entertainment businesses to close. Modoc, Siskiyou and Trinity exited the least-restrictive yellow tier, also shrinking capacity limits for some businesses.
Prior to this week, state health officials hadn’t demoted more than two counties in any one week. Any county demoted Tuesday will have through Friday to implement the changes, according to CDPH.
Thirteen counties combining for a population of 22 million people are now in the purple tier, with none facing the prospect of improving to the red tier any earlier than Nov. 24.
What about next week?
Just as concerning as the reversals, California did not promote any counties this week and reported that zero of the state’s 58 counties made progress toward a looser tier, though five are holding steady in the yellow tier and have no lower tier they can promote to.
Another 18 counties notched one week toward being downgraded, most of them on the basis of reporting too many new daily cases per capita.
Ten of the 18 counties at risk of demotion next week would fall to the purple tier: Fresno, Kern, Kings, Merced, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, Solano, Sutter, Ventura and Yuba.
Butte, Colusa, Lassen, Napa, Nevada, Santa Clara and Tuolumne counties could go from orange to red.
San Francisco is the only yellow tier county facing demotion to orange. Proactively, well ahead of the state framework requiring it to do so, Mayor London Breed announced San Francisco will close down indoor dining, pause plans for on-campus high school learning and reduce capacity at gyms and movie theaters, effective 11:59 p.m. Friday.
Placer and Trinity counties would have been demoted last week but delayed that move to this week by seeking an adjudication process — basically, an appeal request — with the state health department. Both had their adjudications denied. Placer then failed to meet its new red tier criteria while Trinity fell short of orange numbers. That means each county risks another tier downgrade next week, though it is unclear whether they can or will adjudicate again.
El Dorado County said in a statement it is adjudicating, but maps and charts from CDPH continue to show the county in the red tier.
COVID-19 activity on sharp rise statewide
California on Tuesday officially surpassed 18,000 deaths with the addition of 24 fatalities, state data show. More than 977,000 Californians have tested positive during the pandemic.
The state has averaged more than 5,200 new daily COVID-19 cases over the last two weeks, after the rolling average hovered between about 3,100 and 3,400 for most of October, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The rate of diagnostic tests returning positive for coronavirus is 3.7% over the past two weeks. The rolling 14-day average was as low as 2.5% three weeks ago.
And CDPH on Tuesday reported nearly 3,100 patients were hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID-19 with about 860 in intensive care units. Both the hospitalized total and the ICU total have risen about 30% in the past two weeks, and are at their highest points since early September.
Newsom said Monday too many people are “letting their guard down” and allowing COVID-19 to spread during private household gatherings.
It’s not the first time he’s said that. Months ago, when California’s infection and hospitalization totals began to spike at the outset of the summer surge that resulted in most reopening progress being reversed by early July, Newsom cited state and local health leaders who had attributed the spike to parties or other private get togethers.
After economic reopening was paused several weeks from July through the end of August, Newsom and the state unveiled the current tiered opening system at the beginning of September.
Yolo County elections staffer tests COVID-19 positive
A Yolo County Elections Office staff member tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, officials announced Tuesday afternoon.
The staffer infected with the virus had minimal interaction with poll workers but did work with other Elections Office staff members and some election observers, according to a news release.
Officials said there was limited exposure to voter assistance centers, county residents and voters. They also said the county’s contact tracing team will be working to notify those who were in close contact with the infected staff member.
The county’s Elections Office has been complying with social distancing and disinfecting protocols and has been requiring all staff members and visitors to wear a face covering.
Staff in the Elections Office is now temporarily limited to critical infrastructure to continue the canvass of the 2020 election; others were allowed to work from home. Those in close contact with the infected staff member were sent home to self-quarantine and provide testing information.
“To preserve the health and safety of our staff, observers and the public, we are taking extensive measures to contain this incident and are adjusting our election certification process accordingly,” the county’s Registrar of Voters Jesse Salinas said in the news release.
The Elections Office still plans to meet the election certification deadline on Dec. 3. More than 99,000 votes were cast in Yolo County, with over 90,000 of them being vote-by-mail ballots, according to the news release.
Sacramento area by the numbers: 42,000 infected, over 660 dead
The six-county Sacramento region has combined for at least 664 COVID-19 deaths and more than 42,000 lab-confirmed infections since the start of the pandemic.
Sacramento County has recorded a total of 28,721 cases and 514 deaths in the past eight months.
Health officials reported 484 new cases Tuesday, an apparent one-day record for the county. The total may include more than one day’s worth of lab-confirmed cases, but county health officials said Tuesday’s number didn’t include any backlog outside the normal time frame for daily reporting. The county added 707 new cases for the three-day period ending Monday, a daily average of 236, following 252 new cases last Friday.
The county has confirmed 50 deaths for October, a total that continues to grow as officials confirm the cause of deaths, and its first fatality of November in a resident who died Nov. 2. Just over 115 died in September and nearly 180 died in August.
There were 148 patients hospitalized with coronavirus in Sacramento County as of Tuesday, a huge spike from 90 reported last Friday, according to state data. The number of ICU patients is 28, up from 20 on Friday.
Yolo County has reported 3,577 total infections and 64 deaths from COVID-19. The county reported 51 new cases Tuesday afternoon, 34 Monday and 31 Sunday. Health officials reported one new death Tuesday in the county’s unincorporated area.
Yolo had four patients in hospitals with COVID-19 as of Tuesday, the same number as Monday, with the ICU total dropping from three to one.
Placer County has reported 4,912 total infections and 60 deaths. The county reported 59 new cases Tuesday afternoon and 161 Monday evening, which included cases that accumulated over the weekend. The county reported 52 new cases Friday, 98 Thursday and 15 Wednesday.
Placer reported on its local hospitalization dashboard Monday that it had 42 patients in hospital beds with COVID-19, all being treated specifically for the disease, including six in ICUs. State data for Placer County on Tuesday showed 44 hospitalized and six in ICUs. Unlike the county, the state does not break down hospitalized cases by cause of admission.
Placer also reports its test positivity rate was 4.1% for the week ending Oct. 31, the most recent with data available. That’s the county’s highest weekly rate since Sept. 7.
El Dorado County is one of a small number of counties in California with a single-digit death toll, with just four fatalities since the start of the pandemic. Health officials have reported a tally of 1,558 cases after adding 21 new cases to its total Tuesday afternoon. The county reported 50 new cases over the weekend, 18 on Friday, 10 on Thursday and 15 on Wednesday.
El Dorado has four hospitalized COVID-19 patients, all of them in ICUs, as of Tuesday.
Sutter County health officials have reported a total of 2,067 people positive for coronavirus and 12 deaths. The county reported six new cases Sunday, then 37 on Monday. Four people infected with COVID-19 were hospitalized as of Monday, and one person was in intensive care, according to county health officials.
Yuba County officials have reported a total of 1,486 COVID-19 infections and 10 deaths. The county reported 25 new cases Sunday and 18 on Monday. Yuba had one patient infected with COVID-19 hospitalized and in an ICU as of Monday.
Sutter and Yuba, which share a bi-county health office, are both in the red tier and did not gain a week toward promotion or demotion last week.
This story was originally published November 10, 2020 at 7:17 AM.
