Coronavirus updates: Vaccine struggles, new variants muddy California’s COVID outlook
With close to 3 million residents having tested positive and nearly 34,000 COVID-19 deaths reported to date, California is at a tenuous point in the coronavirus pandemic.
Some key metrics of spread have shown signs of recent improvement, with health officials hopeful the winter surge may finally have crested, but with other simultaneous developments shrouding the coming weeks and months in uncertainty.
The statewide test positivity rate and totals for patients hospitalized and in intensive care units with confirmed COVID-19 have all been declining for a little more than a week, as of Monday’s update from the California Department of Public Health.
But deaths have recently poured in at a rate of nearly 500 a day, 10 times the rate at the start of November. The nation’s most populous state has struggled through the vaccine rollout. And officials are growing concerned by multiple genetic variants of COVID-19 that researchers have identified in California, and which could potentially introduce new challenges, the precise scale of which remain unclear.
The state has recently reported close to 40,000 new lab-confirmed cases per day but on Tuesday added only 23,794, which may be lower than the recent norm due to Monday’s holiday. The daily tally of 146 deaths was also well below the recent two-week average of about 480 per day.
CDPH reports an all-time total of 2,996,968 cases, meaning the state is all but certain to officially surpass the 3 million milestone with Wednesday’s update, along with 33,739 deaths.
“While we are seeing some encouraging signs as hospitalizations and case rates are decreasing,” Dr. Tomás J. Aragón, the director of CDPH and California’s state public health officer, said in a statement provided to The Sacramento Bee. “We cannot become complacent because a vaccine is now available.
“In less than one month, California has gone from two, to now three million COVID-19 cases in the state. This number is a serious reminder that COVID-19 is prevalent throughout California.”
New variant identified, ‘concerning’
Researchers have identified a COVID-19 variant called L452R that appears to be growing much more prevalent in some parts of California, CDPH announced in a rare Sunday evening news conference, reflecting some urgency.
At a news conference Sunday, Dr. Charles Chiu of UC San Francisco called L452R “concerning,” and it has been linked to multiple large outbreaks in the Bay Area. In Chiu’s laboratory, which isn’t necessarily representative of all of California, prevalence of L452R grew from about 4% of sequenced samples in late November and early December to 25% in late December and early January.
Variants of COVID-19 emerge due to genetic mutations. These mutations happen essentially at random, but when spread and case rates of the virus are high, new variants are more likely to emerge more often.
Many of these variants are negligible in their differences from other existing variants, but concerns arise on variants that make the virus more infectious. In late 2020, a variant known as B117 became associated with a very severe surge in cases in the United Kingdom, where it was first identified. B117 has since been located in numerous countries and at least 10 U.S. states, including California, according to CDPH and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC put out a warning late last week saying B117 “has the potential to increase the U.S. pandemic trajectory in the coming months,” with data modeling predicting it could become the “predominant variant in March.”
The worst-case scenario feared by health officials is a variant emerging that is both highly infectious and to which vaccines are significantly less effective.
Both Pfizer and Moderna’s products are mRNA vaccines, which work by targeting the spike proteins of the virus, so scientists are particularly focused on variants that include mutations of these spike proteins.
Chiu said very early studies of the L452R spike protein mutation in laboratory tests indicate it’s less susceptible to neutralizing antibodies, but much more research must be done.
Allergic reactions put batch of vaccines on pause
CDPH on Monday said it has told vaccine distributors to stop administering doses from a specific batch of Moderna shots, lot 41L20A, due to reports of some allergic reactions.
State health officials in a news release said fewer than 10 people who received doses from that batch at a California clinic required medical attention within 24 hours of receiving a dose from that batch.
More than 330,000 doses from lot 41L20A were distributed to 287 different California vaccination sites between Jan. 5 and Jan. 12, with no other major incidents reported.
Sacramento County does not have any doses from the lot, according to the local health office. Yolo County said in a statement it has received doses from lot 41L20A but has not administered any of them and has “pulled them from potential distribution.”
This will lower Yolo’s available doses and likely delay distribution in the county, according to the statement.
Vaccine progress still slow
According to CDPH, California had administered about 1.3 million of the 3.2 million vaccine doses it had received as of Saturday.
A separate dashboard from the CDC, last updated Friday, showed California as having received more than 3.5 million doses, with 1.07 million administered. That ranks California in the bottom 10 among the 50 states plus D.C. in terms of the proportion of received doses being administering.
California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly acknowledged early last week that health officials’ considerations of risk, equity and other factors have come at the cost of speed in the rollout.
Many, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, have called the current rate of vaccinations unacceptable.
But confusion is reigning, especially as vaccination protocols and priorities change. Newsom last week directed vaccine providers to begin administering shots to members of the general public ages 65 or older. Many health providers weren’t immediately ready for that change, still administering Phase “1A” shots to frontline health workers and long-term care residents.
Capital region: Sacramento County surpasses 80,000 cases
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 125,000 combined positive cases and recorded more than 1,500 virus deaths.
Sacramento County has confirmed 80,678 cases since the onset of the pandemic, and at least 1,111 of those residents have died of COVID-19.
The county on Tuesday added 2,738 new cases and 31 fatalities for the four-day reporting window caused by the holiday weekend. That works out to about 685 cases and a little less than eight deaths per day. Previously, the county reported 938 new cases and 18 deaths last Friday.
By date of death occurrence, December marked by far Sacramento County’s deadliest month of the pandemic. County health officials have confirmed 361 deaths for the month — an average of nearly 12 a day. December’s total is still growing slightly as death confirmations are made official, mostly from the end of the month, but it has exceeded the previous worst month, August with 181 deaths, by almost double.
Additionally, at least 70 county residents died of the virus between Jan. 1-13, the county said, with that figure still very preliminary. At least 67 died during the first 10 days of 2021.
Virus hospitalizations in Sacramento County have fluctuated some but generally declined, while the ICU patient total remains elevated. The overall patient total fell from 469 last Friday to 441 by Monday, rebounding slightly to 452 by Tuesday. The ICU total hit a new record high of 130, up from 121 on Monday. The available ICU bed total dropped from 71 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. State data on Tuesday showed 148 hospitalized, down from 152 on Monday; with 24 in ICUs, up from 23. CDPH data indicates there are 11 ICU beds available, down from 18 reported Monday.
Yolo County has reported a total of 10,087 cases and 131 deaths, adding 196 cases Sunday. The county most recently reported a fatality last Wednesday.
State data showed Yolo with 30 virus patients in hospital beds on Tuesday, up two from Monday, but with the ICU total falling from 12 to 10.
However, CDPH reports zero ICU beds available in Yolo. A recent data correction cratered an inaccurate total of 23 available beds reported Friday down to two on Saturday. A Yolo County spokesperson recently told The Bee that the state’s tabulation of available ICU beds was inaccurate, and that the true total has routinely been in the low single digits.
El Dorado County has reported 7,515 positive test results and 44 deaths, adding 121 new cases Friday along with three deaths, 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 40 El Dorado residents died of COVID-19 between Nov. 25 and Jan. 7, county officials report.
State health officials reported a record-high 46 virus patients in El Dorado on Jan. 12, but the figure has fallen significantly, down to 25 by Tuesday. The ICU total fell from 10 on Monday to nine by Tuesday, with eight ICU beds now available, according to CDPH.
In Sutter County, at least 7,484 people have contracted the virus and 77 have died. Sutter on Friday added 45 new infections and one death. On Thursday it 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 39 residents hospitalized with COVID-19, down from 42 on Wednesday, and down from a record-high 58 on Jan. 6. Ten people are currently in ICUs.
Neighboring Yuba County has reported 4,818 infections and 27 dead, adding 52 new cases and one death on Friday following a report of 53 new cases Thursday and 742 on Wednesday.
Yuba said Thursday it had 32 residents hospitalized with the virus, up four compared to Wednesday, and with the ICU total rising from seven to nine.
Not all patients are hospitalized in-county, but the only hospital serving the Yuba-Sutter bicounty region — Adventist-Rideout in Marysville — had 54 hospitalized virus patients as of Tuesday’s state data update, down one from Monday, but with the ICU total going from 17 to 20, tying a record high. The hospital has one available ICU bed, down from two on Monday.
This story was originally published January 19, 2021 at 8:49 AM.
