Third winter surge coming? California COVID-19 activity accelerates ahead of holiday season
COVID-19 infection and hospital numbers are starting to increase more sharply in California, as the winter months approach with another new batch of variants in circulation.
The California Department of Public Health in a weekly update Thursday reported the daily case rate for coronavirus at 7.1 per 100,000, up 11% compared to last week.
The increase snapped a nearly four-month streak of consistent decline: before Thursday, the statewide case rate had fallen in each weekly update since mid-July, when California peaked at about 50 daily cases per 100,000.
Some of that decline had come as diagnostic testing dropped to its lowest point in more than two years.
But California’s test positivity rate is also starting to spike, growing to 5.3% this week from 4.5% last week. Positivity had not been above 5% since mid-September.
CDPH as of Thursday tallied 1,842 patients in hospital beds with confirmed COVID-19, an 8% increase from 1,700 one week earlier. The intensive care unit total grew by 15%, to 225 from 196.
Hospitalizations have fluctuated in some areas, including the capital region, while growing more sharply in others, including Southern California and the Bay Area, state health data show.
The latest positivity rate remains well below summer’s peak of 16% and the record-high 23% observed in January, with hospitalizations also low compared to highs of nearly 5,000 this summer and more than 15,000 in January.
But the two worst surges of the coronavirus pandemic so far have come the past two winters, when colder weather and end-of-year holidays drive people to gather indoors. The winter 2020 surge started to take hold in early November, while last winter’s omicron surge erupted around mid-December.
Health officials continue to urge vigilance, and are strongly recommending Californians get vaccinated and boosted. State health data show 72% of Californians have had a primary series of the vaccine, but only 59% are boosted, and just 13% have received a bivalent booster.
The bivalent vaccine boosters, which target the omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants as well as the original strain of the virus, have been available since early September.
Doctors have also grown concerned about the possibility of a bad flu season, and an already-very-early respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) season emerging among young children, that could coincide with another possible winter surge of coronavirus.
Doctors are also urging parents to keep their sick kids home from school.
New BQ variants close to becoming dominant strain
Last winter’s surge was brought on by the original omicron variant, with the following summer wave attributed to a more contagious subvariant of omicron known as BA.5.
In recent weeks, a different family of omicron subvariants, known as BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, have spiked in prominence nationwide, knocking BA.5 below 50% of cases and on track to dominant U.S. cases themselves very soon.
The two BQ-family variants comprised 35% of U.S. cases and 37% of cases in the region that includes California, according to a weekly update last Friday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each roughly quadrupling from 9% three weeks earlier.
The subvariants may be more contagious and immune-evasive than BA.5. Health experts are continuing to study BQ.1 and BQ.1.1.
Sacramento-area numbers by county
Sacramento County’s latest case rate is 6.7 per 100,000 residents, state health officials said in Thursday’s update, a 2% increase from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Sacramento County were treating 77 patients Wednesday, state data updated Thursday show, down from 94 one week earlier. The intensive care unit total decreased to 11 from 14.
Placer County’s latest case rate is 3.9 per 100,000 residents, a 27% decrease from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Placer County were treating 34 virus patients Wednesday, down from 52 one week earlier. The ICU total decreased to three from five.
Yolo County’s latest case rate is 8.7 per 100,000 residents, a 76% increase from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Yolo County were treating three virus patients Wednesday, up from one a week earlier. The ICU total increased to one from zero.
El Dorado County’s latest case rate is 7.0 per 100,000 residents, a 21% increase from one week earlier.
Hospitals in El Dorado County were treating nine virus patients Wednesday, up from three a week earlier. The ICU total remained at one.
Sutter County’s latest case rate is 8.6 per 100,000 residents, up 106% from last week, and Yuba County’s is 7.4 per 100,000, down 20%, state health officials reported Thursday.
The only hospital in Yuba County, which serves the Yuba-Sutter bicounty area, was treating five virus patients Wednesday, up from zero a week earlier. The ICU total increased to one from zero.
This story was originally published November 10, 2022 at 11:14 AM.
