Coronavirus updates: California ICU rate declines; vaccines still trudging out
California health leaders are hopeful the state is turning the corner on the winter coronavirus surge, and that recent trends of modestly declining hospital rates and plateauing case numbers are signs the Christmas and New Year’s holidays did not impact the state as severely as feared.
We are not quite out of the woods yet. State health officials reported more than 42,500 new cases Friday, 2,000 higher than the daily average for the past two weeks.
Hospitalization rates have fallen from peaks reached earlier in January. But with close to 21,000 Californians hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 cases, including more than 4,700 requiring intensive care, hospitals across the state still range from heavily impacted to severely overloaded.
Patient totals have not yet stabilized or declined, for instance, in the Southern California county of San Diego, or Kern County in the San Joaquin Valley, according to data from the California Department of Public Health.
Virus deaths are coming at a furious pace. CDPH has reported 6,320 fatalities over the past two weeks, an average of 451 a day over that stretch. That’s more than six times higher than at the start of December.
The California Office of Emergency Services says it has procured 10 more refrigerated trailers to use for morgue space in response to climbing COVID-19 deaths, in addition to the 88 trailers distributed over the past several weeks.
“Cal OES has ordered additional shelving for the existing trailers and more body bags, with six trailers still awaiting allocation,” the agency said in a news release updated Friday.
The death toll will continue to increase at a rapid pace until about a week after the ICU patient total starts a more significant decline, as the intensive care metric is one of the better predictors of future COVID-19 fatalities.
To date, more than 2.85 million Californians have tested positive for COVID-19 and at least 32,291 have died of the disease. CDPH confirmed 637 new deaths Friday, the second-highest daily total of the pandemic.
Vaccine rollout remains frustrating, confusing
The first month or so of California’s mass vaccination campaign to bring about a more swift conclusion to the COVID-19 pandemic has not gone well.
The state as of Thursday had vaccinated only about 2,468 people per 100,000, well below the U.S. average of 3,300, according to federal data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It has also administered one of the lowest percentages of shots received among the 50 states plus D.C.
Wednesday’s announcement from Gov. Gavin Newsom that the state would open up vaccine distribution to everyone age 65 or older required quick clarification that these age groups still come after Phase 1A — front-line health workers and long-term care residents — who are still receiving doses across the majority of the state.
The next day, when Northern California hospital network Sutter Health debuted its online vaccination appointment system, its website crashed, likely from an overwhelming amount of traffic.
Earlier in the week, when Newsom announced large venues like Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and Cal Expo in Sacramento would be converted to mass vaccination centers, officials in the latter county had to send a statement advising that it won’t be vaccinating the general public at Cal Expo “for quite some time.”
State Health and Human Services Director Dr. Mark Ghaly told reporters earlier this week that the state’s deliberate and methodical process “has led to some delays in getting vaccine out into our communities.”
“We want to be equitable, at the same time the more layers we put there … that becomes really challenging especially as you move to start vaccinating the community,” said state Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento. “We’ve really got to step back and say, ‘How do we make it as simple as possible?’”
In one effort to vaccinate as many people as possible, El Dorado County recently set up what officials call an “optimization list.” The county on Monday started offering a web portal allowing people, regardless of phase or tier within state or federal priority guidelines, to sign up to receive text alerts in the event there are excess doses at the end of the business day at one of the county’s two public health clinics.
The first-come, first-serve list required that those signing up be El Dorado County residents who could get to either the Placerville or South Lake Tahoe clinic within 30 to 60 minutes in the afternoon. Because thawed vaccines cannot be refrozen, doses nearing the end of their refrigeration periods must be used or thrown away. An El Dorado spokeswoman said the list is an effort to reduce waste.
But on Wednesday the county had to suspend new sign-ups in that system after 17,000 eager residents signed up in the first two days. Those who signed up remain in the queue.
Restaurants and more reopen in Sacramento area
Newsom and the state on Tuesday announced that the 13-county Greater Sacramento area has exited the strict regional stay-at-home order due to improving ICU outlook.
This lifted restrictions on outdoor restaurant dining, and also allowed businesses like salons and barbershops to reopen.
Though many restaurant owners remain concerned about their ability to maintain profits while limited only to outdoor seating, there’s some good fortune in the timing: it is unseasonably warm for mid-January in Sacramento, with forecasts showing temperatures in the high 60s this three-day weekend and no rain in sight.
Also opening back up this week: Fairytale Town, and the Sacramento Zoo.
Latest Sacramento-area numbers
The six counties that make up the bulk of the 13-county Greater Sacramento region — Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties — have reported more than 123,000 combined positive cases and recorded at least 1,527 virus deaths as of Friday.
Sacramento County has confirmed 77,940 cases since the onset of the pandemic, and at least 1,080 of those residents have died of COVID-19. The county reported 938 new cases Friday following 782 on Thursday, with 18 fatalities confirmed each day.
By date of death occurrence, December marked by far Sacramento County’s deadliest month of the pandemic. County health officials have confirmed 353 deaths for the month — an average of more than 11 a day.
At least 90 county residents died between the Sunday before and Saturday after Christmas, making it the the county’s deadliest calendar week of the pandemic.
December’s total is still growing as death confirmations are made official, mostly from the end of the month, but it has already exceeded the previous worst month, August with 181 deaths, by nearly double.
Additionally, at least 47 county residents died of the virus during the first nine days January, the county said, with that figure still very preliminary.
Virus hospitalizations in Sacramento County have fluctuated some but have held relatively stable, while ICU cases continue to climb. The overall patient total fell from 494 Thursday to 469 on Friday, but the ICU total jumped from 114 to a record-high 124. However, the available ICU bed total also increased, 58 to 67.
Placer County health officials have confirmed a total of 16,761 infections and 173 deaths, adding 229 cases and one new death Friday following 215 cases and two deaths Thursday. On Wednesday, Placer confirmed 10 fatalities.
Data show Placer’s hospitalized total declining from a peak of 216 near the end of 2020, while the ICU rate fluctuates. Placer’s own local dashboard on Friday showed 145 in hospitals, down two from the previous day, with the ICU total holding at 27. State data on Friday showed 163 hospitalized and 26 in ICUs in Placer. Both report seven available ICU beds in the county, down one from Thursday.
Yolo County has reported a total of 9,598 cases and 131 deaths, adding 92 cases and no deaths Thursday following 60 cases and one new death Wednesday.
State data showed Yolo with 30 virus patients in hospital beds Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but with the ICU patient total jumping from nine to 13. The state reports 23 ICU beds available in Yolo County, down one from Thursday. Yolo’s local dashboard in recent updates has shown lower available bed counts than the state; it reported eight available on Thursday.
El Dorado County has reported 7,394 positive test results and 41 deaths, adding 68 cases and three deaths Thursday following 104 cases and one newly reported death Wednesday.
Following just four deaths from March through mid-November, at least 37 El Dorado residents died of COVID-19 between Nov. 25 and Jan. 3, county officials report.
State health officials reported a record-high 46 virus patients in El Dorado on Tuesday, but the figure dropped to 34 as of Friday’s update. The ICU total fell from 11 on Thursday to nine on Friday, with available beds recovering from five to six, according to CDPH.
In Sutter County, at least 7,439 people have contracted the virus and 76 have died. Sutter on Thursday reported 61 new cases and one new death, similar numbers to the 63 cases and one death added in Wednesday’s update.
Sutter County reports 42 residents hospitalized with COVID-19, same as Wednesday, down from a record-high 58 on Jan. 6. But 13 are in intensive care, up two from Wednesday.
Neighboring Yuba County has reported 4,766 infections and 26 dead, adding 53 new cases Thursday following 742 on Wednesday, with no deaths reported either day.
Yuba said Thursday it had 31 residents hospitalized with the virus, up four compared to Wednesday, and with the ICU total rising from seven to eight.
Not all patients are hospitalized in-county, but the only hospital serving the Yuba-Sutter bicounty region — Adventist-Rideout in Marysville — had 58 hospitalized virus patients as of Friday’s state data update, up five from Thursday, with the ICU total spiking from 15 to 18. The hospital has one available ICU bed, up from zero on Thursday.
This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 7:37 AM.
