Coronavirus updates: Hospitalized cases in California have doubled in past 4 weeks
California’s surge in coronavirus infections and hospitalizations continues to accelerate with no sign of letting up.
The state through Thursday reported nearly 1.06 million lab-confirmed cases of the respiratory disease, with at least 18,466 Californians dead from it. The state reported 106 new deaths Thursday, the most in a day in nearly a month.
California also on Thursday reached more than 4,500 concurrent COVID-19 patients for the first time since Aug. 22, when the hospitalized total had been on a gradual decline from July’s peak of about 7,200. The ICU total hit 1,150, its highest since Sept. 1.
In the autumn surge, both infections and hospitalizations are already growing at a much faster pace than they did at the start of the summer surge.
The latter metric, which hit 4,523 hospitalized virus patients Thursday, has exploded from 2,712 two weeks earlier, state data show. That’s a jump of 67% and a net increase of more than 1,800 patients.
In the summer’s first two weeks of surge, from June 14 to June 28, the hospital total increased by 54%.
Hospitalizations have now doubled in less four weeks, having been under 2,300 on Oct. 24.
New cases are coming in very rapidly and the pace of that increase is accelerating furiously.
The state is now averaging nearly 8,200 new infections a day over the past two weeks. The rolling two-week average increased by 500 from Wednesday’s 7,700, thanks to the addition of nearly 11,500 new cases Thursday. The summer peak and all-time high for daily new cases was about 9,500, which the state is now on track to blow past in a matter of days barring some rapid and unexpected slowdown.
While the state’s testing capacity has seen boosts, labs are only processing about 25% more COVID-19 tests per day now than in late October. So the current surge is not simply the result of more testing — new cases are substantially outpacing new tests in terms of percentage growth.
And California’s rate of virus tests returning positive, which had hit an all-time low of 2.5% on Oct. 18, has doubled to an even 5% in the past month. The two-week rolling average has grown a full percentage point in six days, and the one-week average is up to 5.6%. California’s two-week rate peaked at 7.6% in July.
Test positivity is increasing quickly in many different counties, including all six in the Sacramento region. In Placer County, it’s above 6% after it dipped as low as 1.8% in early October. In some areas, like Sutter County, it recently surpassed 10%.
These trends are concerning in their own right, but are even more alarming given that we’re just starting to enter what’s widely expected to be the most challenging period yet of the pandemic: Thanksgiving and the December holidays, coupled with colder and wetter winter weather.
With Thanksgiving now just a week away, pleas from health officials to avoid gatherings and continue adhering to other COVID-19 protocols are only growing louder.
California health leaders have said the current surge appears to be due, at least in some significant part, to too many people celebrating Halloween with friends and family while letting their guard down about face covering and social distancing. Weeks in advance, officials strongly discouraged Californians from trick-or-treating and partying this year.
Health experts have said for months that outdoor settings are safer than indoors in terms of COVID-19 transmission. California had been fortunate in this regard to have largely above-average temperatures for much of October, but now in November, it is finally becoming seasonably cold and rainy.
Thursday marks eight months since Gov. Gavin Newsom first issued California’s stay-at-home order. The order, which initially barred all non-essential businesses and activities, has been modified numerous times as the pandemic situation has changed — most recently, clamping back down with widespread restrictions on restaurant dining, gyms, church worship and numerous other indoor activities.
But it has never been lifted entirely, and in all iterations, the statewide order has prohibited non-essential gatherings that bring people from different households together. California Department of Public Health officials have since released some guidelines with limited exceptions, such as allowing for members of two or three households to dine together outdoors, but for the most part, gathering in person has been a no-go.
Preventing gatherings continues to prove challenging, though, becoming toughest around major holidays when long-standing traditions bring the greatest temptation to see friends and family in person.
The main tool has been messaging, and it’s being wielded in unprecedented ways in some parts of the U.S. Officials in Harris County, the most populous county in Texas with over 4.7 million residents, sent a mass emergency text alert Tuesday evening urging people to cancel their holiday gatherings, CBS Dallas/Fort Worth and other local media reported. Massachusetts reportedly plans to send a similar alert statewide on Thursday, NBC 10 in Boston reports.
Newsom faces heavy backlash for French Laundry dinner fiasco
Newsom has been labeled a hypocrite and had his pandemic response credibility damaged after the San Francisco Chronicle first reported last Friday that he joined about a dozen others for a dinner at Yountville’s world-famous French Laundry restaurant.
The governor immediately faced backlash, and in a Monday news conference he apologized, calling the decision to attend the dinner a “bad mistake” and error in judgment.
Criticism only intensified in the next two days, though. On Tuesday photos obtained by Fox 11 Los Angeles were shared on Twitter by reporter Bill Melugin. The photos, which went viral online Wednesday, appeared to show Newsom and the other diners seated a table in close quarters, with no social distancing or masks in sight, both of which are violations of state and local health orders.
The dinner was for longtime Newsom friend and lobbyist Jason Kinney’s 50th birthday. Politico first reported, and the California Medical Association confirmed in a statement, CEO Dustin Corcoran and another CMA lobbyist were also in attendance at the dinner.
Separately, Newsom has had his emergency powers called into question after a Sutter County Superior Court judge ruled last week that the governor overstepped his role with a June executive order detailing how counties should handle November’s mail-heavy general election amid the pandemic.
To top it all off for state government, California lawmakers are facing their own scrutiny after it emerged that several of them traveled to Hawaii for an annual conference, even as the nationwide coronavirus surge prompted California, Oregon and Washington to issue a joint advisory discouraging nonessential travel.
Placer health director says county’s surge is worse than expected
Placer County health director Dr. Rob Oldham said this week that the region’s “predicted second wave” has come “earlier in the season and (is) escalating much faster than most were predicting.”
Local health officials attribute the rise mainly to household transmission, meaning many are catching the virus from immediate family members or roommates. But Placer’s health office also recently said that 20% of confirmed cases interviewed by contact tracers in October said they had attended a large gathering, the most of any month in the pandemic, Oldham said.
Oldham in a county Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday said it does not appear that restaurants or places of worship, both of which were forced closed with Monday’s sweeping demotion by the state of 28 counties down to the strict purple tier, have been major sources of transmission. Neither have reopened schools, he said.
“But with that said ... COVID case investigation and contact tracing has significant limitations and so we can’t say definitively,” he continued.
By the numbers, Placer County COVID-19 activity has soared, especially its hospitalizations. Placer’s patient total for the virus has skyrocketed nearly six-fold from late October, when there were 13 in hospital beds, to a record-high 76 patients as of Wednesday.
The county says on its local health dashboard that 72 of those patients (95%) were admitted specifically for the virus. Ten overall, and nine from the latter category, are in intensive care units.
City of Sacramento hits 300 deaths, region reaches 700
The six-county Sacramento region has combined for at least 707 COVID-19 deaths and almost 48,000 total confirmed cases during the ongoing health crisis.
All six counties are in the purple tier after Monday’s emergency demotions by the state.
Sacramento County has recorded 32,411 lab-positive coronavirus cases and 544 resident deaths from the virus. The county broke another record Thursday, reporting 559 new cases. The two biggest daily increases before that, of 484 and 496, came last week.
Hospitalizations continue to grow extremely rapidly, reaching 227 on Thursday after net increases of 19, 17 and 19 in the past three days, state data show. The county’s high from the summer surge was 281. The county now has 54 patients in ICUs, a jump of seven from Wednesday and its highest point in more than two months.
The city of Sacramento has surpassed 300 coronavirus deaths, increasing to 303 with Thursday’s update.
County health officials have confirmed 18 deaths for the first two weeks of November. The county’s October death toll stands at 54.
Yolo County has reported 3,933 total infections and 71 deaths from COVID-19, reporting seven deaths since last Thursday, including one Wednesday. The county added 41 cases Wednesday.
Yolo has 12 patients in hospitals with COVID-19, down two from Wednesday but with seven still in ICUs.
Placer County has reported 5,543 cases during the pandemic, adding 54 cases Wednesday following 92 on Tuesday.
Placer reported one death Monday and another Wednesday for a total of 65. The county has reported six fatalities since Thursday.
Placer is amid a massive spike in hospitalized cases: The county says it has 76 patients in hospital beds with confirmed coronavirus as of Tuesday, with 72 of them (95%) in hospitals specifically “because of COVID.” Both are all-time highs for the county, already past the summer surge. The county says 10 are now in ICUs, nine of them being treated specifically for the disease.
State data by Thursday showed 81 hospitalized and 11 in ICUs in Placer County. Placer had just 34 hospitalized with the disease on Nov. 6 with five in intensive care.
El Dorado County is one of a few California counties with a single-digit death toll, with just four fatalities since the start of the pandemic.
But on Tuesday, El Dorado smashed a new daily case record, breaking it for the third time in under a week. Health officials reported 97 new cases Tuesday, breaking Friday’s record of 37, which broke Thursday’s of 32. The county also reported 64 cases for the period of Saturday through Monday. Adding 49 cases Wednesday, the county has now reported 1,847 since the start of the pandemic.
El Dorado has eight hospitalized COVID-19 patients as of Thursday, the most since April, with half of them in ICUs.
Sutter County health officials have reported a total of 2,521 people positive for coronavirus and 13 deaths. The county added 80 new cases Monday, a new daily record, and one fatality. The health office reported 65 more Wednesday.
The past six days, Friday to Wednesday, have marked Sutter County’s six highest daily infection totals of the pandemic.
Yuba County officials have reported a total of 1,665 COVID-19 infections and 10 deaths. The county reported 21 new infections Wednesday. Yuba had eight patients infected with COVID-19 hospitalized, with one in an ICU, as of Wednesday.
Sutter and Yuba, sister counties that share a public health office and have a combined total of one hospital, have seen the COVID-19 patient total at that hospital shoot up very quickly. Adventist Health/Rideout in Marysville was treating 22 virus patients as of Wednesday, up from 10 last Wednesday.
Rideout’s president, Rick Rawson, in a video message earlier this week pleaded for local residents to follow health orders and avoid gatherings to keep his hospital from becoming overwhelmed.
World numbers: Death toll hits 1.35 million
The United States continues to make up close to one-fifth of the global death toll, exceeding 250,000 on Wednesday afternoon, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The world’s coronavirus fatality total reached 1.35 million early Thursday.
The U.S. also accounts for about a fifth of the worldwide infection total, at just over 11.5 million of 56.4 million, according to Johns Hopkins. The nation added more than 170,000 new cases Thursday.
Neither the U.S. nor world surges show signs of slowdown. The nation added more than 170,000 new cases Wednesday and the global total was above 620,000; both figures are only slightly lower than daily records set earlier in November.
After the U.S. by death toll are Brazil at over 167,000, India at about 132,000, Mexico at 99,500 and the United Kingdom at over 53,000. Italy has reported more than 47,000 fatalities, France is approaching 47,000, Iran has surpassed 43,000 and Spain is over 42,000.
Three South American nations are after that, with Argentina, Peru and Colombia each reporting between about 34,000 and 36,000 deaths. Another 34,500 have died in Russia, according to Johns Hopkins, and South Africa recently surpassed 20,000.
By infections, 10 countries aside from the U.S. have reported more than 1 million cases. India is approaching 9 million and Brazil is close to 6 million. France recently surpassed 2 million and Russia entered Thursday just a couple of thousand shy of that milestone. Over 1.5 million have tested positive in Spain, followed by 1.4 million in the United Kingdom, 1.3 million in Argentina and over 1.2 million in each of Italy and Colombia. Mexico is the most recent to reach the 1 million mark.
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 8:53 AM.
