California’s COVID-19 rates trending down after brief plateau. What will winter bring?
Coronavirus infection rates in California are showing signs of declining following a brief plateau earlier this month, though health officials continue to advise caution as newly discovered subvariants spread globally and as winter approaches.
The statewide case rate fell to 6.1 per 100,000 residents, the California Department of Public Health said Thursday in a weekly update, down 9% in the past week.
Test positivity dropped more modestly, to 4.1% from 4.2% a week earlier, but is down from 4.6% two weeks ago.
Prior to that, California’s positivity rate had flattened around 4.8% for nearly three weeks, between late September and mid-October.
Hospitalizations with COVID-19 have started to grow slightly, a couple of weeks after infection rates plateaued, with some larger spikes seen locally. Increases in hospital numbers typically lag behind infections by about two to three weeks.
CDPH on Thursday tallied 1,674 virus-positive patients in California hospital beds, up 4% from the previous week but down by 4% compared to two weeks ago.
In Placer County, virus hospitalizations have increased nearly 60% in the past two weeks, from 32 on Oct. 12 to 51 on Wednesday, according to the latest state data.
Transmission had ticked up in some parts of the state around the start of October, including Sacramento.
The amount of COVID-19 virus detected in Sacramento wastewater spiked by about 90% between Oct. 10 and Oct. 14, according to data tracked by the Stanford-based Sewage Coronavirus Alert Network, but has slid by about 33% since then.
The current rate and the spike earlier this month have both remained well below the peaks observed during summer, when the BA.5 subvariant of omicron became the Sacramento region’s dominant strain of the virus.
The U.S. has recently observed sharp increases in several subvariants believed to be more transmissible than the currently dominant BA.5, including ones known as BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and BF.7.
In a weekly update last Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported BQ.1 at 9.4% of cases, BQ.1.1 at 7.2% and BF.7 at 6.7% – up from 5.8%, 3.6% and 5.4%, respectively, the previous week.
Officials say it is possible those variants are at least partly responsible for a recent wave of cases in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, where infections started to climb earlier in September.
National health data from the U.K. shows that that wave overseas appears to have started to subside, with new cases and hospitalizations steadily declining since about the start of October.
Health officials have advised throughout the pandemic that COVID-19 spreads more easily during winter, when colder weather drives more people to gather indoors and as people celebrate major year-end holidays.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced early last week that California will end its state of emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic at the end of February 2023.
Sacramento-area numbers by county
Sacramento County’s latest case rate is 7.3 per 100,000 residents, state health officials said in Thursday’s update, a 12% increase from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Sacramento County were treating 95 virus patients Wednesday, state data updated Thursday show, down from 114 one week earlier. The intensive care decreased to 13 from 18.
Placer County’s latest case rate is 3.5 per 100,000 residents, a 27% decrease from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Placer County were treating 51 virus patients Wednesday, up from 33 one week earlier. The ICU total increased to four from three.
Yolo County’s latest case rate is 6.2 per 100,000 residents, an 8% decrease from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Yolo County were treating four virus patients Wednesday, down from five a week earlier. The ICU total remained at one.
El Dorado County’s latest case rate is 4.6 per 100,000 residents, a 3% decrease from one week earlier.
Hospitals in El Dorado County were treating two virus patients Wednesday, down from four a week earlier. The ICU total decreased to zero from one.
Sutter County’s latest case rate is 4.3 per 100,000 residents, down 38% from last week, and Yuba County’s is 7.0 per 100,000, up 69%, state health officials reported Tuesday.
The only hospital in Yuba County, which serves the Yuba-Sutter bicounty area, was treating eight virus patients Wednesday, up from two week earlier. The ICU total increased to one from zero.
This story was originally published October 27, 2022 at 10:51 AM.
