Coronavirus updates: 220 deaths set record for California; shutdown hits Sacramento
Thursday might be a pivotal day in the coronavirus pandemic.
The Food and Drug Administration held an advisory commission meeting that could result in Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine being approved for emergency use before the weekend.
If it’s approved as expected, distribution across the U.S. will begin within days.
The same day, California recorded its highest single-day death toll of the pandemic so far: 220 COVID-19 fatalities, according to the California Department of Public Health, exceeding the previous mark set July 1 by one death. The state averaged 106 deaths per day over the last two weeks, the highest rate in more than three months.
A vaccine is likely still months away from being widely available to the general public in California, but health experts hope this will be the last major surge of the pandemic.
California has secured 327,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, with those shots expected to arrive by around next Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said earlier this week. The state has indicated the first doses will go to health care workers.
The FDA meeting comes as California and the vast majority of the U.S. continue to face a crushing surge of new cases, including waves of severe infections that are buckling hospital systems.
The New York Times reported Wednesday in an analysis of new federally released data that hospitals combining to serve over 100 million Americans had fewer than 15% of their intensive care unit beds available last week.
Newsom last week announced that same threshold, 15% ICU capacity, was the trigger for a region-based stay-at-home order. Within a week, three of California’s five regions fell below the 15% mark, including the 13-county Greater Sacramento area, which dropped to 14% Wednesday and then to 13% on Thursday.
Those 13 counties — Alpine, Amador, Butte, Colusa, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, Sierra, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba — have until 11:59 p.m. Thursday to enter a tight shutdown with closures for nonessential businesses, including hair salons and outdoor restaurant dining, and capacity at retail stores limited to 20%. Gatherings outside of one’s household are also barred.
It’s the strictest set of restrictions introduced since March. San Joaquin Valley and Southern California entered the shutdown over the weekend. The Bay Area remains near 20% of ICU capacity available, but five counties in that region voluntarily imposed tighter restrictions late last week, ahead of the state’s mandate. Only the North State area is not currently under some sort of lockdown, with its total intensive care capacity still above 25%.
California remains stuck in a long and harrowing coronavirus surge, by far its worst yet of the health crisis. Since the start of November, California’s rate of daily new infections and its concurrent total of hospitalized virus patients have each more than quadrupled, and the number of those patients in intensive care has more than tripled, data from the California Department of Public Health show.
Statewide test positivity jumped from a little over 3% to an even 9% in that same stretch, another frightening indicator of broad and rapidly accelerating spread.
“It is everywhere as far as I can see,” Sacramento County Public Health Officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye said earlier this month.
There’s no sign of cases or hospital admissions slowing down, and it appears that the feared post-Thanksgiving surge is underway. The state reported 186,000 lab-confirmed COVID-19 infections in the past week — an average of 26,500 a day, including a record of nearly 31,000 added Wednesday. The hospitalized patient total has risen from 9,000 to 11,500 in just the past six days.
The deluge is already overwhelming some hospitals in the state, and is now acutely threatening to outstrip what health staffs can handle at the regional and statewide levels. San Joaquin Valley’s ICU capacity has fallen to 1.9%, and Southern California’s has dropped under 8%. The state as a whole had just under 10% ICU availability as of Thursday, down from about 12% one day earlier.
The state surpassed 2,600 ICU patients with the virus on Thursday and the number of available ICU beds fell below 1,500, both firsts for the pandemic.
To date, at least 1.45 million Californians have tested positive for COVID-19, according to CDPH. The state passed 20,000 all-time coronavirus deaths earlier this week.
Sleep Train Arena field hospital set up in Sacramento
The California Office of Emergency Services confirmed that the practice facility at Sleep Train Arena, which has been converted to an overflow hospital, was ready to receive patients as of Wednesday evening.
The practice gym has 66 hospital beds set up. Nearly 200 more could be added in the arena itself at a later date, OES spokesman Bryan May said in an email.
The Natomas site will treat “low-acuity” patients, and will not have intensive care units set up, May said. But the field hospital could ease the load at regular hospitals, freeing up space and staff to convert for ICU needs.
Sleep Train is one of 11 surge sites being prepped statewide, and it is the only such facility in the Sacramento area.
CSU campuses plan to reopen by fall 2021
The 23-campus California State University system announced Wednesday that it plans to resume in-person instruction for the fall 2021 semester.
Students have mainly been learning virtually since March, with limited exceptions such as nursing students.
“While we are currently going through a very difficult surge in the pandemic, there is light at the end of the tunnel with the promising progress on vaccines,” said CSU Chancellor Timothy White.
White said the decision was made early to allow students and families to plan ahead.
Latest Sacramento-area numbers: 72,000 cases, nearly 900 dead
The six counties that make up the bulk of the Greater Sacramento region by population — Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba — have combined for nearly 72,000 confirmed cases and at least 885 COVID-19 deaths.
More than 660 were hospitalized with the disease across those six counties, including at least 134 in ICUs, as of Thursday.
Sacramento County has reported a total of 46,479 infections and 659 COVID-19 deaths since the onset of the pandemic. The county blew past another daily record with 1,262 new cases reported Tuesday, followed by 648 on Wednesday and 1,143 on Thursday.
In terms of episode date, which is the earliest of either onset of symptoms or the positive test specimen being collected, Nov. 30 through Dec. 3 marked the county’s four largest case loads of the pandemic by far, at 986, 981, 927 and 884, respectively. The previous high had been 675 infections connected to Nov. 23, county data show.
Local health officials have now confirmed at least 109 virus deaths among Sacramento County residents for November — seven short of September for second-deadliest month of the pandemic, but death confirmations for last month are still coming in as those determinations are made official.
Four county residents died of the virus on Thanksgiving, and 31 died in the five days leading up to the holiday, county data show. Seven deaths have already been confirmed for the first four days of December.
Countywide, 398 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Thursday, holding at Wednesday’s record-high total. Seventy-nine were in ICUs, down from 85 on Wednesday but with the number of available ICU beds dropping by 12, state data show.
Placer County health officials have reported a total of 8,860 infections and 89 deaths, adding 371 Wednesday and 316 Thursday for its two highest totals of the pandemic, as well as four new deaths each day.
State data as of Thursday showed 166 people were in Placer hospitals with COVID-19, a record Placer has been breaking almost every day since mid-November, including 20 in ICUs. Placer on its own local health dashboard said the county had 176 hospitalized with 21 in ICUs, with 18 ICU beds remaining available.
Placer’s test positivity, which started November at 4%, was 12% for the week ending Dec. 1, the county health office says.
The city of Sacramento has reached 373 dead and nearly 26,000 infected. The latter equates to about one in every 19 capital city residents having tested positive for the virus since the start of the health crisis.
Yolo County has reported a total of 5,774 infections and 88 deaths as of Thursday, when the county reported 140 new cases following 93 on Wednesday, 59 Tuesday and 125 Monday.
The Yolo County dashboard on Thursday showed one fewer death that Wednesday, when it added five new fatalities and listed a total of 89.
Yolo had 24 hospitalized with the virus including a record-high 13 in intensive care as of Thursday, with only two ICU beds still available.
El Dorado County has reported an all-time total of 3,628 positive test results and eight deaths. The county reported 99 new cases Thursday.
State health officials say 25 people are hospitalized, El Dorado’s all-time high, with 11 in ICUs, down from Wednesday’s record of 13.
In Sutter County, at least 4,502 people have been infected and 30 have died. The county reported four new fatalities Wednesday, following one death reported Tuesday. Sutter on Tuesday also reported a record-high 204 lab-confirmed cases.
Neighboring Yuba County has reported 2,670 infections, adding 50 on Wednesday following 78 on Tuesday. Yuba’s reported death toll recently fell from 11 to 10. This happens occasionally in counties due to a data correction, most frequently involving a decedent’s official place of residence being reclassified into a different county.
The bi-county health office dashboard showed 40 Sutter residents and 13 Yuba residents hospitalized as of Wednesday, though not all of them are being treated at Adventist-Rideout in Yuba County.
Rideout as of Thursday’s state data update had 49 coronavirus patients hospitalized and 11 in intensive care, both records.
This story was originally published December 10, 2020 at 7:41 AM.
