Sacramento COVID cases are down. Why county is ‘encouraged’ by vaccine progress
Coronavirus infections have recently declined in the Sacramento area, a promising development as providers continue to work toward vaccinating children ages 5 to 11, along with giving booster doses to the general adult population.
Sacramento County’s daily case rate for COVID-19 has dropped by about a third in the past two weeks, from 16.5 to 10.9 per 100,000 residents. The test positivity rate has fallen from about 4.2% to 3%.
Each is the county’s lowest rate recorded since early July, according to the local health office data dashboard.
Neighbor Placer County has seen similar improvement, recently falling from 21 to 14 cases per 100,000 with positivity dropping from 5.9% to 4.3%.
“We did see a decline, so we’re continuing to monitor that,” Sacramento County health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye said on a Thursday call with reporters.
Kasirye in late September established a target of five cases per 100,000 to remove Sacramento County’s indoor mask order for public settings, which is a similar transmission rate to mid-June, before the delta variant emerged. Some California counties, including Marin and Stanislaus, have recently removed mask mandates imposed in response to summer’s delta surge.
Masks remain mandatory at schools under a state health order.
The decline in local case rate comes after a plateau throughout most of October, with a relatively small spike in Sacramento that Kasirye attributed to a jail outbreak and to elevating case rates in young children, though local health officials say most cases involving school-age kids have been linked to community transmission and not large campus outbreaks.
Sacramento-area child vaccination rates faring well
Sacramento County has trailed California in overall vaccination rates across all age groups by a few percentage points throughout the rollout, but it continues to outpace the state in the 5-to-11 age group, which gained authorization Nov. 3. Neighboring counties are also ahead of the state as a whole.
About 10% of California children in the newly eligible age range have had a first dose of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine through Wednesday, compared to about 20% in Yolo, 16% in Placer and 11% in Sacramento, according to California Department of Public Health data.
El Dorado, rounding out the four-county capital region, trails the state average slightly at 9.6%, still high enough to rank 20th among California’s 58 counties.
“We’re really encouraged by the number of families we’re seeing coming to our clinics,” Sacramento County vaccine program coordinator Rachel Allen said Thursday.
Allen said the county has been working to redistribute its supply of child-sized COVID-19 vaccines to pediatric practices in the area.
Adults can get boosters. How many have had one?
Kasirye and Allen reiterated the state’s announcement from last week: Any adult who wants a booster dose, and is at least six months beyond their final dose of an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna) or two months beyond the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, is now eligible to receive one.
Although official federal guidelines say boosters should be reserved for those in high-risk settings or occupations, California health officials last week said last week that residents may self-assess their own risk level, instructing providers not to turn down any adults who have had enough time pass since their last dose.
State health chief Dr. Mark Ghaly said any adult in California who wants a booster dose should get one.
CDPH has updated the state’s vaccine scheduling website, MyTurn, to reflect this change.
About 150,000 Sacramento County residents have received boosters, according to an update last Friday, close to one-quarter of all residents who have been fully vaccinated for at least six months. In Placer County, more than 53,000 have had a booster, nearly one-third of eligible adults, according to the Placer health office.
Hospitals remain fairly busy, but far from peak
Kasirye said the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals has recently hovered between 150 and 160 patients. That’s about one-third of the 450 patients recorded during the peak of the delta surge, but roughly triple the 50 to 60 who were in hospital beds before delta arrived.
“Some of the major hospitals, especially, are still seeing quite a number of COVID cases,” the health officer said.
State epidemiologist Dr. Erica Pan in a tweet over the weekend stressed that hospital census counts are already high due to a rise in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections, heightening the importance of holding off a winter COVID surge.
“We know that the hospitals are very busy, but it’s not all due to COVID,” Kasirye added.
Health officials have urged residents to get both their COVID-19 vaccine and a flu shot.
