6 counties promoted to California’s COVID red tier. 12 others await vaccine progress
California health officials on Tuesday promoted six counties from the strict purple tier into the looser red tier of COVID-19 restrictions.
Nine counties had been eligible to advance this week, after notching their first of two necessary consecutive weekly updates meeting red-tier criteria last week.
Alameda, Butte, Calaveras, Imperial, Santa Cruz and Solano counties were each promoted.
The remaining three — Mono, Placer and Tuolumne — fell back to purple-tier numbers in this week’s update and were therefore not moved into the red tier.
However, it is possible that those three counties along with nine others could become eligible to join the red tier within days, possibly before the end of this week, depending on statewide vaccination progress.
The California Department of Public Health announced last week that once the state has administered 2 million vaccine doses in disadvantaged neighborhoods — the lowest quartile of the “Healthy Places Index” — it will raise the threshold between the purple and red tiers from an average of seven daily cases per 100,000 residents up to 10 per 100,000.
CDPH guidelines say the change will be retroactive, adding a week of credit for any county that missed out due to having a case rate between seven and 10 per 100,000 residents. This applies to Mono, Placer and Tuolumne.
The other two metrics taken into account, which are overall test positivity and positivity within that bottom HPI quartile, will remain the same. Each must be below 8% for two straight weeks for a county move from purple to red tier status; if both are below 5% for two consecutive weeks, a county can advance if its case rate per 100,000 did not increase by more than 5% over the previous week.
The tier list will be updated one day after California crosses 2 million shots administered within the bottom quartile. Through Tuesday, that group was just a few thousand shy of 1.9 million, after increasing about 20,000 compared to Monday.
The nine additional counties ranging from seven to 10 daily cases per 100,000 in both of the past two list updates while also meeting test positivity requirements are: Colusa, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Mendocino, Orange, San Benito, San Bernardino, Siskiyou and Sonoma. Amador came in beneath 10 per 100,000 last week but not this week.
Sacramento County in red tier soon?
Another dozen purple-tier counties recorded case rates between seven and 10 per 100,000 this week but not in last week’s update, and could join the red tier as early as March 16 if the state hits the vaccine equity requirement by then.
Those 12 are: Sacramento, Lake, Monterey, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Sonoma, Sutter, Tehama, Tulare, Ventura and Yuba counties.
Sacramento’s tier metrics for this week were a test positivity rate of 3.8%, health equity positivity of 5.8% and 9.5 daily cases per 100,000.
All told, a maximum of 24 of California’s 58 counties could join the red tier in the next week depending on case rates and statewide vaccine progress.
Counties in the red tier may allow indoor restaurant dining and a number of other types of businesses, including gyms and movie theaters, to reopen for indoor operations.
In newly updated guidelines, sports and live performance events beginning April 1 can proceed outdoors, with up to 100 fans in attendance in purple-tier counties and up to 20% of a venue’s normal capacity in the red tier. Amusement parks are required to stay closed in the purple tier but can open at 15% capacity in the red tier, also effective starting in April.
Tier status is also a critical component of the state’s school reopening plan. Districts in red, orange and yellow tier counties face losing 1% of their portion of a $2 billion statewide COVID-19 safety fund for each day they’re not offering in-person instruction for at least grades K-6 as well as one middle or high school grade starting April 1.
Twenty counties are now in the red tier — the six promoted Tuesday plus Del Norte, El Dorado, Humboldt, Lassen, Marin, Modoc, Napa, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Shasta, Trinity and Yolo.
Mariposa and Plumas counties advanced from the red tier to join Sierra County in orange, which allows looser capacity limits than the red tier as well as some indoor entertainment businesses like bowling alleys to open. The state’s least populous county, Alpine at about 1,100 residents, is California’s only yellow-tier county.
California COVID-19 by the numbers
California has recovered from its winter surge in virus infections, and then some.
CDPH reported Tuesday that the state averaged about 4,100 new lab-confirmed infections per day over the preceding two weeks. The surge rocketed that rate from about 4,275 on Nov. 1 to about 40,000 by Christmas.
Even more promising, only 2.2% of diagnostic tests for COVID-19 have returned positive in the past two weeks, the lowest positivity rate reported by CDPH since the start of widespread testing last spring. Positivity peaked at 14% in early January. In the nearly two-month plateau before the surge, from September through late October, it hovered between about 2.5% and 3%.
The number of patients hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 cases statewide has fallen substantially as well. The state on Tuesday reported about 3,750 virus patients in hospital beds including 1,028 in intensive care units. Those metrics have not quite rebounded to pre-surge levels, but they’re down from January peaks of nearly 22,000 hospitalized and almost 5,000 in ICUs.
Deaths from COVID-19 continue to increase by about 345 a day, according to the latest two-week average reported by CDPH. The latest 14-day numbers are still being influenced by a data anomaly: 1,114 virus fatalities were reported Feb. 25 due to a two-month backlog of more than 800 deaths discovered in Los Angeles County.
The two-week daily death rate peaked at 542 in early February; before the surge, in early November, it had been below 50.
Latest on the vaccine effort
California has administered more than 10.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to date, CDPH reported Tuesday.
The lowest quartile of the HPI index — the one that state health officials need to pass 2 million doses before changing the tier list rules — has received 1.9 million of them, or about 18%. The highest HPI quartile has received 3.26 million, or 31%. True equitable distribution would have all quartiles receiving as close to 25% as possible.
According to a separate data tracker from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 11% of California’s adult population is fully vaccinated and 24% is at least partially vaccinated, having received at least one dose of the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
Sacramento area: Nearly 2,200 dead but hospital totals dropping
The six-county Sacramento region has reported over 150,000 total positive cases and at least 2,180 virus deaths over the course of the pandemic.
Sacramento County has reported 94,699 cases and 1,525 resident deaths from COVID-19. The county recorded 138 cases and four deaths Tuesday, after adding 883 cases and 33 fatalities the prior seven days.
By date of death occurrence, December and January were by far Sacramento County’s two deadliest months of the pandemic. Health officials have confirmed 384 deaths for December, 319 for January and 135 for February.
Prior to December, the county’s deadliest month of the pandemic was August, at 181 virus deaths.
The county had 116 patients hospitalized with the virus as of Tuesday’s state data update, down from 157 on March 1, with the ICU total dropping from 47 to 35.
Placer County health officials have confirmed a total of 20,162 infections and 232 deaths. Placer last reported a COVID-19 fatality Feb. 26.
State data showed 46 virus patients in Placer hospitals including 11 in ICUs as of Tuesday, down from 61 and 16, respectively, at the start of March.
Yolo County has reported 12,851 total cases and 186 deaths. The county has confirmed one death in the past week.
Yolo had seven virus patients hospitalized as of Tuesday, down from 16 on March 1, with the ICU total cutting from six to two, state data show.
El Dorado County has reported 9,239 positive test results and 100 deaths.
State data on Tuesday showed El Dorado with three patients hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID-19, down from four on March 1 earlier, but all three are in ICUs, up from one intensive care patient.
In Sutter County, at least 8,943 people have contracted the virus and 98 have died. Officials have reported one death in the past week.
Yuba County, which shares a health office with Sutter, has reported 5,831 infections and 39 dead, adding two deaths in the past week.
The lone hospital serving the Yuba-Sutter bicounty region — Adventist-Rideout in Marysville — had 18 hospitalized virus patients as of Tuesday, same as March 1, with the ICU total dipping from five to three.
This story was originally published March 9, 2021 at 8:47 AM.
