Sacramento COVID hospitalizations climb to 6-month high, halfway to winter 2021 peak
Hospitals in Sacramento County are treating more than 250 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19, the highest total in about six months as the region deals with one of California’s sharpest surges of the delta variant.
The 256 patients reported Tuesday by the California Department of Public Health represents a quadrupling in the past month, as hospitals in the county had just 62 COVID-19 patients in their care July 3. Fifty-two are in intensive care units, up from 12 a month earlier.
The latest total is roughly half the peak of the winter surge, when 518 were hospitalized a few days before Christmas, and more than 90% of the way to the peak of the summer 2020 surge.
Hospitalizations have also mushroomed in nearby Placer County, from 25 to 116 in a little over three weeks. That’s more than half the county’s winter peak and nearly double its peak during summer 2020.
Sacramento’s hospitalization surge mirrors its spike in lab-confirmed cases, which have increased from a daily average of 112 to 400 since the start of July, according to the local health office. Sacramento has the second-highest per-capita case rate over the past week of any county with more than 100,000 residents, behind Solano, according to CDPH.
State health and government leaders have said throughout the pandemic that a key priority is maintaining ICU capacity, to keep hospitals’ emergency departments from becoming overwhelmed.
Sacramento County hospitals as of Tuesday reported 87 ICU beds still available. Placer, though, had only 11 — the county’s fewest since February, state data show.
California dropped most pandemic restrictions June 15, leaving much of the onus on county health offices. Sacramento last week became California’s third county, after Los Angeles and Yolo, to return to a universal mask mandate for indoor public settings. Seven Bay Area counties joined them Monday.
Placer as well as other counties in the Sacramento area including El Dorado, Sutter and Yuba as of Tuesday had not moved toward mandating masks.
Sacramento County health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye in a statement last week announcing the mandate called universal indoor masking “the least disruptive and most immediately impactful measure to take to slow the rate of transmission.” It will take another week or so before the impact of the health order is reflected in local infection numbers.
Kasirye during a call with reporters last Thursday said the county health office at that point was not considering any stricter measures such as capacity limits, business shutdowns or social distancing requirements, and that officials would closely monitor the situation.
Hospitalizations have jumped from 175 to 256 — a 46% increase — in the past week. ICU cases are up 49%. The Sacramento Bee reached out Tuesday for comment from Kasirye regarding rapidly rising hospitalizations, but a county spokesperson said she was not available.
The vast majority of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 are unvaccinated, health officials say.
Sacramento epidemiology program manager Jamie White said last week that more than 95% of the county’s 130 hospital admissions in June were not fully vaccinated. Yuba County, which has one of the state’s lowest vaccination rates, reported Monday that 14 out of 15 residents hospitalized at that time and with vaccination status known were not fully vaccinated.
Only about 49% of Sacramento County residents have been fully vaccinated, according to state health data updated Tuesday, compared with a statewide rate of 54%.
“Our goal has been 70% and we continue to try to reach that,” Kasirye said last week.
