Nearly half of all Sacramento County coronavirus cases younger than 40, officials say
Sacramento County health officials reported 162 new infections of the coronavirus and one new death from COVID-19 complications Thursday, after disclosing 174 new cases Wednesday and more than 200 each of Monday and Tuesday.
The county has now recorded 3,559 total COVID-19 cases since the pandemic started roughly four months ago. Sacramento County’s death toll stands at 69 people, after public health officials disclosed two fatalities Monday and one Thursday. About half of those fatalities, 34 of them, have come in the city of Sacramento, where more than 2,100 people have tested positive.
In new data that gives a more precise breakdown of age groups for confirmed infections, Sacramento County’s COVID-19 dashboard now shows that close to half of all positive tests — just over 1,700 — have come in people age 39 or younger.
Nearly 150 children under age 10 have tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 respiratory disease, the county now reports.
Just under 2,000 positive cases involve adults ages 18 to 49. Another 470 were in the 50-59 age group, close to 390 were in their 60s, just over 200 were in their 70s and about 225 were 80 or older.
Sixty-four of the people who have died from COVID-19 in Sacramento County were age 65 or older; the remaining five were younger than 65, though their precise ages have not been reported.
Data updated Wednesday by the state Department of Public Health showed Sacramento County had 106 coronavirus patients hospitalized as of Tuesday, a skyrocketing total that had been at 33 in mid-June and as low as seven in late May. Of the current 106 hospitalized, 29 are in intensive care units.
That spiking hospitalization figure is what landed Sacramento back on California’s watch list for counties with rapidly elevating COVID-19 activity.
Gavin Newsom on Wednesday ordered Sacramento, Los Angeles and 17 other counties that had been on that list three more days — and which combined for about 70 percent of the state’s 40 million residents — to close bars and indoor businesses across several sectors including dine-in restaurants, with the intent of flattening the pandemic’s growth curve amid a statewide surge.
This story was originally published July 2, 2020 at 10:47 AM.
