COVID-19 surge worsens in California, with the Sacramento area now among hardest hit
Coronavirus activity surged throughout May in California, with most transmission and hospitalization numbers roughly doubling over the course of the month as highly contagious subvariants of omicron continue to gain traction.
Some of the state’s worst COVID-19 infection rates are now in the Sacramento area.
The California Department of Public Health on Tuesday evening reported the statewide case rate at 33.1 per 100,000 and test positivity at 7.9%. The state entered May with a case rate of 16.3 per 100,000 and positivity at 3.1%.
Statewide positivity has surpassed the peak from last summer’s delta variant surge, which topped out at 7.2%, and the latest case rate has nearly reached delta’s peak of 33.7 per 100,000.
CDPH on Tuesday reported 2,190 patients hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 including 272 in intensive care units, up from about 1,050 hospitalized and 150 in ICUs on May 1. Both figures remain well below the highs of more than 15,000 hospitalized with 2,600 in intensive care at the peak of the omicron surge in January.
For the Sacramento region, state health officials on Tuesday reported Placer County at 14.2% positivity, El Dorado County at 13.9%, Sacramento County at 12% and Yolo County at 3.4%.
Placer and El Dorado’s positivity rates ranked fourth- and fifth-highest, respectively, among California’s 58 counties, trailing only tiny Alpine and Sierra counties (25% and 15.4%, respectively) along with Siskiyou County (16.7%).
San Francisco, an early epicenter of the current surge, appears to have plateaued at about 11% positivity. Its case rate is nearly double the state average at 56 per 100,000, though that is largely due to the Bay Area’s comparatively high volume of tests conducted.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week placed Sacramento and Placer counties into the “medium” community level for COVID-19 danger, following Yolo County entering medium the previous week.
All three, plus El Dorado, are on track to enter the “high” community level in the next weekly update Thursday. CDC guidance calls for indoor masking in counties that reach the high level, and Sacramento City Unified would return to a mask mandate if Sacramento County enters that level.
The current surge, marking California’s fifth wave during the 27-month global health crisis, has seen a rise in outbreaks at schools, state prisons and nursing homes. It has also complicated return-to-office plans, including for state workers.
Gov. Gavin Newsom tested positive for COVID-19 Saturday morning and had mild symptoms, his office said in a statement. He will be isolating through at least Thursday and until he tests negative.
COVID in wastewater passes omicron surge in some areas
The level of virus circulating in some parts of California may have already surpassed the record-shattering omicron surge from January, according to recent data from the Stanford-based Sewer Coronavirus Alert Network, which monitors concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 genes shed in wastewater at several sites in Northern California and the Bay Area.
Wastewater readings in one part of San Francisco as of Sunday were more than 40% higher than the peak of the BA.1 omicron surge at that plant in early January.
Viral loads in Davis appear to be roughly 15% higher now than at the height of January’s peak, according to the Stanford research effort.
Other parts of the state remain short of their omicron records. Sacramento and San Jose had only reached roughly 40% as high as their January peaks. However, viral levels have soared roughly 20-fold in Sacramento and 25-fold in San Jose since late March and remain on the rise, according to the latest wastewater readings.
BA.2.12.1 now dominant in western U.S.
The CDC in a weekly update Tuesday said the BA.2.12.1 subvariant, which is believed by experts to be about 25% more contagious than BA.2, accounted for about 59% of U.S. cases last week, up from 53% the previous week.
BA.2.12.1 is also now dominant in the CDC region that includes California, making up 50% of cases compared to 43% for BA.2. The remaining 7% are lineages of BA.1, the original omicron strain.
Some parts of California, including Santa Clara and Yolo counties, have reported detecting cases of the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants.
Those two subvariants, which have become dominant in South Africa and parts of Europe, are believed to be even more transmissible than the BA.2 lineages and also better at evading immune protection.
Cases surging at nursing homes
The case rate for COVID-19 among California nursing home residents has increased more than ninefold since mid-April, according to a data tracker maintained by CDPH.
CDPH on Tuesday reported a seven-day average of 117 resident cases across California’s 1,223 licensed skilled nursing facilities, after that rate had fallen as low as 12 per day for the week ending April 14.
Outbreaks are underway at a handful of facilities in Sacramento, Placer and Yolo counties, the state data dashboard shows.
The latest statewide rate remains well below the peak of about 620 resident cases per day at the height of the omicron surge in January, and below the roughly 725 cases per day in December 2020 before vaccines were widely available. But the latest rate is nearly triple the peak recorded during last summer’s delta variant surge.
Skilled nursing facilities are home to some of California’s most vulnerable residents to COVID-19, accounting for nearly 10,000 of the state’s nearly 91,000 confirmed virus deaths to date.
The fatality rate did not rise sharply at nursing homes during the delta or omicron surges. CDPH reports 90% of skilled nursing residents are vaccinated.
Sacramento-area numbers by county
Sacramento County’s latest case rate is 34.5 per 100,000 residents, state health officials said in Tuesday’s update, a 32% increase from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Sacramento County were treating 150 virus patients Monday, state data show, up from 132 one week earlier and the highest total since March 7. The intensive care unit total doubled from 10 to 20 in the past week.
Placer County’s latest case rate is 29.5 per 100,000 residents, a 27% increase from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Placer County were treating 60 virus patients Monday, up from 53 one week earlier. The ICU total doubled from four to eight.
Yolo County’s latest case rate is 35.5 per 100,000 residents, a 16% increase from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Yolo County were treating five virus patients Monday, up from two a week earlier. The ICU total was at one each day.
El Dorado County’s latest case rate is 25.2 per 100,000 residents, a 41% increase from one week earlier.
Hospitals in El Dorado County were treating eight virus patients Monday, up from six a week earlier. The ICU total increased to two from zero.
Sutter County’s latest case rate is 19.2 per 100,000 residents and Yuba County’s is 26.3 per 100,000, state health officials reported Friday, each up 41% compared to last week.
The only hospital in Yuba County, which serves the Yuba-Sutter bi-county area, was treating nine virus patients Monday, up from seven a week earlier. The ICU total increased from one to two.
This story was originally published June 1, 2022 at 8:14 AM.
