Coronavirus updates: California’s hospital total has biggest one-day jump since July
Coronavirus activity remains on a sharp uptick in California, with state officials hopeful that the wave of tightened restrictions announced Tuesday can help mitigate weeks of spiking infections that have been attributed to people letting their guard down — otherwise known as “pandemic fatigue.”
New lab-confirmed cases, the percentage of diagnostic tests returning positive and the totals for patients hospitalized and in intensive care units with the respiratory disease known as COVID-19 have all risen significantly in California over the past few weeks.
Wednesday marks exactly eight months since the World Health Organization first declared the COVID-19 crisis a pandemic. California in that span has reported more than 984,000 residents testing positive and 18,000 confirmed deaths from the disease, according to CDPH.
The state reported nearly 7,500 new cases Wednesday. It’s the third day in the past week with more than 7,000 cases added, after that mark hadn’t been hit once in September or October, even on days with large backlogs reported.
After hovering between about 3,100 to 3,400 new daily cases for most of October, California in the past two weeks has added an average of more than 5,400 per day. Test positivity rate, which hit an all-time low of 2.5% in mid-October, is now 3.8% over the past two weeks and 4.3% for the past seven days.
More than 3,200 are hospitalized and about 890 were in ICU beds as of Wednesday with lab-confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to the state. Total hospitalizations saw a net increase of 141, the biggest one-day growth since July. The overall hospitalized patient total has grown 38% and ICU occupancy has surged 34% in the past two weeks, state data show.
Faced with worsening numbers since mid-October, the state health department demoted nine counties to stricter levels of business and activity restrictions in this week’s update to the tier list.
The state’s weekly assessments classify California’s 58 counties into one of four color-coded tiers based on their recent COVID-19 metrics. The tiers, ranging from most to least restrictive - purple, red, orange and yellow - determine what is allowed open and how tight modifications like capacity limits must be in various indoor settings.
Sacramento and San Diego counties moved to the purple tier. There are now 12 counties in that most restrictive stage, combining for a population of more than 21 million of California’s 40 million residents. In the purple tier, restaurant dining rooms, gyms, places of worship and more must remain closed for indoor operations.
Amador, Contra Costa, Placer and Santa Cruz counties changed from orange to red; Modoc, Siskiyou and Trinity counties moved from yellow to orange.
And San Francisco, despite not yet being demoted from the yellow tier, will close down indoor dining well ahead of the state’s requirement to do so, Mayor London Breed announced Tuesday.
The economic reopening framework requires that a county meet a looser tier’s requirements for two straight weeks in order to be promoted; likewise, two straight weeks of failing to meet a county’s current tier results in demotion.
The state did not promote any counties on Tuesday. None even gained one week of credit toward a more relaxed tier, data released Tuesday by the California Department of Public Health show, though five small counties in the yellow tier held steady and have no lower stage to which they can move.
On top of the nine demoted, another 20 counties were put on notice that they could be downgraded next week if their numbers don’t improve back to the necessary levels. Those 20 are spread throughout all parts of the state.
The CDPH initially said on Tuesday that 11 counties had been demoted to stricter tiers. But two from that list, El Dorado and Stanislaus, said in statements later that day that they’d sought adjudication from the state and should therefore remain in their current tiers while appeal requests are considered. Indeed, a map and charts from CDPH as of Wednesday morning reflect that El Dorado will remain in the orange tier and Stanislaus will stay in red while they are adjudicated.
El Dorado’s closest neighbors in the capital region, Sacramento and Placer counties, had their adjudications denied by the state in the previous two weeks’ updates.
California is currently on track to reach 1 million confirmed cases by about Saturday. It’ll be the second state to hit that milestone, following Texas, which has about 10 million fewer residents than California.
How can a fatigued California stay safe from COVID-19?
With infection totals only just starting to reflect the impact of Halloween gatherings, a wave of new challenges will arrive before the end of 2020.
Colder weather, Thanksgiving and the winter holidays are only going to deepen the threat of pandemic fatigue, which California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently pointed to as a big contributor to people gathering while lapsing in their mask or social distancing protocols, leading COVID-19 to spread among friends and family members.
In the Sacramento region, Placer County interim health officer Dr. Rob Oldham recently said that 20% of the people with COVID-19 cases in the county during October told contact tracing interviewers that they had attended a large gathering. That’s the highest rate of any month during the pandemic, he said.
“In our messaging, we’re trying to acknowledge that people have fatigue, but also that this is nowhere near to being over,” Oldham said. “I think that people are seeing that we’re in this for the long haul and so we’re going to have to get creative and keep that human connection.”
Creativity in the pandemic has often involved technology. Sacramento County health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson has recently recommended having Thanksgiving virtually this year.
State and local officials have urged that if you are going to gather in person, you can reduce risk by limiting get togethers to three total households or fewer, maintaining use of face coverings and social distancing, keeping gatherings briefer than usual and remaining outdoors if possible.
California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly on Tuesday outlined which activities are considered high-risk and should be avoided. Top of the list were any activities that require taking one’s mask off, such as eating and drinking in the company of people outside of one’s immediate household.
Another risk is gathering in poorly ventilated places. Opening windows and doors can make indoor places safer, Ghaly said.
The state hasn’t yet released specific guidance for Thanksgiving or winter holidays, but Ghaly said those guidelines will come soon.
One of the few silver linings for California is that it is entering this tough winter stretch from a better baseline than a majority of U.S. states, including some in the Midwest where infections are skyrocketing and hospitals are starting to reach capacity.
An analysis from Johns Hopkins University on Tuesday showed California with a test positivity rate of 4.1% over the past week, which is 10th-lowest among the 50 states plus D.C. and Puerto Rico. It’s one of 13 with a rate still below 5%, the threshold that WHO recommends before reopening from an economic shutdown.
Sacramento-area: Fast-growing infection total passes 42,000
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 29,014 cases and 514 deaths in the past eight months.
There were 158 patients hospitalized with coronavirus in Sacramento County as of Wednesday, a huge 76% surge from the 90 reported last Friday, according to state data. The number of ICU patients is 35, up from 20 on Friday, a 75% increase.
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 293 additional cases Wednesday.
Sorted by “episode date,” meaning the date a positive test specimen was actually collected rather than when its result was publicly reported, the county now says 1,518 new cases emerged from Nov. 2 to Nov. 6, last Monday through Friday.
That is the second-highest five-day for the entire pandemic, beaten only by a stretch from early July when the county was early in its worst surge to date, county data show.
Though the county has significantly boosted testing capacity since July, no period since the end of summer has come close to the recent spike. The county said its test positivity for the week ending this past Saturday was 4.6%, its highest in nearly two months. The countywide rate briefly dipped below 2% in early October.
The county has confirmed 51 deaths for October 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.
Sacramento is in the purple tier.
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 three patients in hospitals with COVID-19 as of Wednesday, with two in ICUs.
Yolo County entered the week at risk of demotion, but remained in the red tier after numbers improved compared to the previous week. The earliest Yolo could move to a stricter or looser tier is Nov. 24.
Placer County has reported 4,993 total infections and 60 deaths. The county added 81 new cases Wednesday following 59 on Tuesday.
Placer reported on its local hospitalization dashboard Tuesday that it had 48 patients in hospital beds with COVID-19, all but one of them treated specifically for the disease, and eight in ICUs for COVID-19 treatment. State data for Placer County on Wednesday showed 49 hospitalized and six in ICUs.
Placer also reports its test positivity rate was 4.1% for the week ending Nov. 2, the most recent with data available. That’s the county’s highest weekly rate since Sept. 7.
Because Placer’s move from the orange tier to the red tier on Tuesday was delayed by one week due to the county’s adjudication request, which was denied, and because its rate of new cases per 100,000 fell in the purple tier, Placer County faces demotion down to the purple tier as early as next week. It is unclear whether it can or will adjudicate again, if that downgrade happens.
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 on Wednesday, all of them in ICUs, the same figures as Tuesday.
El Dorado County has adjudicated its tier status. If the state accepts the appeal, the county will remain in the orange tier next week. Otherwise, it will move down to red.
Sutter County health officials have reported a total of 2,089 people positive for coronavirus and 12 deaths. The county reported 22 new cases Tuesday following 37 on Monday. Four people infected with COVID-19 were hospitalized as of Tuesday, and one person was in intensive care, according to county health officials.
Yuba County officials have reported a total of 1,494 COVID-19 infections and 10 deaths. The county reported eight new infections Tuesday following 18 on Monday. Yuba had one patient infected with COVID-19 hospitalized and in an ICU as of Tuesday.
Sutter and Yuba, which share a bi-county health office, are both in the red tier but both failed to meet red-tier requirements in Tuesday’s update from the state. They face demotion back to the purple tier as early as next week.
US approaches 240,000 dead, global toll near 1.3 million
The global COVID-19 infection total has soared to more than 51.6 million, with recent days routinely adding between 500,000 and 600,000 new cases, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The United States still has more confirmed cases than any other nation, surpassing 10 million this week, and has reported more than 100,000 new cases for seven straight days.
The U.S. also has by far the world’s highest death toll, closing in on 240,000 as of Wednesday morning. Nearly 1,275,000 have died worldwide during the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins.
Following the U.S. by death toll are Brazil at nearly 163,000, India at over 127,000 and Mexico at about 96,000. In Europe, the United Kingdom is just shy of 50,000 fatalities, Italy has surpassed 42,000 and France is at just over 41,000. Iran and Spain are each approaching 40,000 dead. More than 31,000 have died in Russia.
In South America, Peru is just shy of 35,000 dead, Argentina has reported 34,000 deaths and Colombia recently passed 33,000.
After the 10.3 million confirmed cases in the U.S., India is next with 8.6 million infections, followed by Brazil at 5.7 million. France and Russia have each reported more than 1.8 million cases. Colombia, the United Kingdom, Argentina and Spain have between 1.3 million and 1.4 million cases. Italy will likely surpass 1 million cases later Wednesday. Peru and Mexico have each reported more than 925,000.
This story was originally published November 11, 2020 at 8:43 AM.
