4 California counties move to looser COVID restriction tiers; Sacramento sees progress
California health officials on Tuesday advanced four counties into looser COVID-19 risk tier levels, lessening business and activity restrictions due to improving virus transmission rates.
Merced and Placer counties moved from the second-strictest tier, red, to the second-loosest, orange. Sparsely populated Inyo and Mariposa counties moved into the yellow tier, the least stringent in the four-level system.
Sacramento County remains in the small minority of California’s population still in the red tier, but it finally notched its first week of credit in moving toward orange due to its dropping rate of COVID-19 infections, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The threshold between red and orange is six daily cases per 100,000. Sacramento dropped from 6.3 per 100,000 in last week’s update to 5.5 in this week’s assessment. Placer’s case rate was 5.9 per 100,000 last week and 4.4 this week.
If Sacramento’s case rate remains below six in next week’s update, the county could advance to orange, a promotion it has yet to receive since the tier structure was introduced at the end of August. Placer County hasn’t been in orange since November, prior to California’s winter surge in cases. Both counties joined the red tier, from purple, in March.
Red-tier counties are subject to tighter capacity limits than the orange and yellow tiers, and a few types of businesses — mostly indoor entertainment such as bowling alleys — are ordered to remain closed.
The strictest tier, purple, kept restaurant dining rooms, gyms, movie theaters and several other types of establishments closed for indoor operations. No county has been in purple since early April.
Plumas and Yolo counties had entered this week eligible to move into the yellow tier but missed out.
Yolo was held in orange because it failed to meet the state’s health equity metric. Its overall test positivity rate was well below the 2% requirement, coming in at 0.3%, but positivity rate in ZIP codes in the bottom quartile of the state’s health index swelled to 2.7%, up from 1.6% last week.
Mariposa County had not originally been eligible but was retroactively given an extra week of credit after an adjudication from state health officials.
Just eight counties remain in red. Half of them — Sacramento, Nevada, San Joaquin and Solano — came in below six cases per 100,000 and may therefore move to orange next week if their rates hold below that mark. The other four — Del Norte, Shasta, Stanislaus and Yuba — came in over the threshold.
Since the tier list is set to end June 15, the four counties in the latter group will each either be promoted June 8 or not at all.
State Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly confirmed last week that California remains on track to end the tier framework by that date, as announced in early April. Ghaly also said that social distancing restrictions will no longer be required at businesses, and that fully vaccinated Californians will not have to wear masks in most settings.
The main exceptions for restrictions ending are for what the state calls “mega events,” defined as indoor crowds with more than 5,000 attendees and outdoor crowds of over 10,000 — things like baseball games, concerts and parades.
The state said indoor mega events would require attendees to either verify vaccination status or provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test, though a footnote on the CDPH webpage for reopening says venues can accept self-attestation for either.
Vaccine verification or negative test protocols are a recommendation, not requirement, for outdoor mega events.
Employers will also remain subject to Cal/OSHA workplace standards.
Kasirye said that even if the county only exits the red tier only a week or two before the tier format ends, those extra days could make a difference for local businesses affected by the state health order. She said it would also reflect progress being made in driving down the local case rate.
“We want to get as low as possible when we get to June 15.”
California’s COVID-19 numbers improve on record lows
CDPH on Monday and Tuesday reported California’s test positivity at 0.8% for the prior seven days — the lowest reading for this metric throughout the entire pandemic, improving on a record of 0.9% set early last week. At California’s worst point of the winter surge, positivity topped 17%.
Virus hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 are also at their lowest points ever recorded. The state on Tuesday reported there were 1,222 confirmed cases in hospital beds statewide, the fewest since CDPH started keeping track in March 2020. Just 297 were in intensive care, also the fewest of the pandemic. Those numbers peaked in January at nearly 22,000 hospitalized and close to 5,000 in intensive care units.
State health officials report the latest fatality rate at an average of 16 deaths per day as of early May, which is the state’s lowest since late March 2020. The rolling one-week death rate peaked at more than 670 per day in early 2021.
More than 3.67 million Californians have tested positive for COVID-19 and at least 61,770 have died since the start of the health crisis, according to CDPH.
Over 21 million vaccinated; Moderna seeks OK for ages 12 to 17
Close to 16.8 million Californians are fully vaccinated with either two doses of Pfizer or Moderna or one dose of Johnson & Johnson, and about 4.4 million more have had a first dose of Pfizer or Moderna, state health officials said Tuesday.
That means more than 42% of California’s 39.5 million residents are fully vaccinated, and 54% are at least partially immunized.
The state on May 13 opened eligibility to youths ages 12 to 15, after federal agencies cleared the Pfizer vaccine for use in those adolescents. There are roughly 2 million children in that age group in California.
According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data updated Monday, 65% of Californians ages 12 and older have had at least one dose of vaccine, which ranks 11th among U.S. states and is ahead of the national average of 59%.
Moderna, currently authorized for use only in ages 18 and older, on Tuesday released preliminary clinical data saying its two-dose vaccine is 100% effective in ages 12 through 17. The company says it plans to apply for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in early June.
Sacramento area: Hospitalizations, deaths continue to slow
The six-county capital region of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba counties has reported close to 169,000 lab-confirmed cases and at least 2,463 virus deaths over the course of the pandemic.
Sacramento County has reported 105,963 cases and 1,700 resident deaths from COVID-19, last updated Tuesday. The county health office has added seven confirmed virus fatalities in the past week, down from 15 the previous week.
The countywide hospitalized total has been declining. The tally as of Tuesday dropped to 73, its lowest point since last June and down from 85 one week ago. The ICU total has dropped from 19 to 16 in the past week.
Hospitalizations in Sacramento peaked the week of Christmas, when nearly 520 were concurrently hospitalized, about one-fifth of the county’s licensed bed total.
Placer County health officials have confirmed a total of 22,918 infections and 295 deaths through Monday. Placer has reported two deaths in the past week, same as the prior week.
State data on Tuesday showed 29 virus patients in Placer hospitals, decreasing from 37 one week earlier, with the ICU count dropping from seven to six.
Yolo County has reported 13,939 total cases and 208 deaths. Yolo has not reported any new deaths in the past week, after adding one the previous week.
Yolo had three virus patients hospitalized as of Tuesday’s state data update, including two in intensive care, compared to one hospitalized patient not in an ICU a week earlier.
El Dorado County has reported 10,266 positive test results and 113 deaths. El Dorado has reported no new deaths in the past week, after reporting one the previous week.
State data showed El Dorado with four hospitalized patients, up from two a week earlier, with the ICU count going from zero to one.
In Sutter County, at least 9,499 residents have tested positive for the virus and 106 have died. Yuba County, which shares a health office with Sutter, has reported 6,340 total infections and 41 dead. Neither county reported any deaths in the past week.
Adventist-Rideout in Marysville — Yuba-Sutter bi-county region’s lone hospital — had five hospitalized virus patients as of Tuesday’s update, down from eight a week earlier. The ICU total fell from two to zero.
This story was originally published May 25, 2021 at 8:02 AM.
