Sacramento, Placer demoted in COVID-19 tiers. What it means for schools, businesses
In a calculated move designed to stem a new coronavirus surge, California health officials today demoted Sacramento and two other counties to “purple tier” status, the state’s most restrictive level, a step that will force hundreds of local businesses and houses of worship to once again halt or reduce indoor activities. Public schools that planned to reopen campuses later this month will have to put those plans on hold.
The decision by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Department of Public Health comes as the capital region, the state and the nation experience a long-feared “second wave” of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, eight months after the persistent virus first hit the United States.
It means restaurants in Sacramento and other purple-tier counties must stack up their indoor tables and stick to outdoor dining, just as the cold and wet winter months are about to arrive. Schools that haven’t launched in-person classes by now will have to wait until counties can work their way back to the red tier. Religious organizations offering indoor services will be told to move back outdoors or go to virtual meetings. And with the holiday shopping season nearly here, stores will have to reduce the number of customers allowed in at a time.
Sacramento County plans to change its local health order effective noon Friday, making use of a three-day grace period the state allows in order to give businesses and organizations time to prepare.
State health officials on Tuesday demoted nine counties in total, moving San Diego to the purple tier along with Sacramento. Placer County moved from the orange tier down to the more restrictive red tier. Yolo County, entering the week at risk of demotion, stayed in the red tier.
The state originally announced 11 county demotions, reporting Stanislaus County had gone to the purple tier and El Dorado County had moved down to red. However, after those counties wrote in statements that they are seeking an adjudication from the state and should therefore remain in their current tiers until that appeal process is complete, the state affirmed this and amended its list: Stanislaus remains in the red tier and El Dorado is still orange.
In Sacramento County, health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson has urged families to try a virtual Thanksgiving. Or, if families decide they must gather, he says to do so with no more than three households together. Officials advised doing so outdoors, socially distanced and for a shorter duration than typical.
The latest numbers are showing a spike in cases similar to what occurred early this summer during what has been a roller-coaster year of tightening and easing restrictions. Sacramento County added 484 new cases Tuesday, an apparent one-day record for the county. The total may include more than one day’s worth of lab-confirmed cases, but county health officials said the number didn’t include any backlog outside the normal time frame for daily reporting.
The state’s assessment this week, which looked at data from Oct. 25 through Halloween, determined that Sacramento County averaged 9.7 new cases per 100,000 residents, well above the cutoff of 7.0 required for the red tier.
The county had 4.1% of tests return positive that week, which is good enough for the orange tier. However, that rate has increased in each of the last three weeks’ updates, by about half a percentage point per week.
Health officials said the latest spikes are due in part to coronavirus pandemic fatigue that has caused some to let down their guard. In Sacramento, more people have been gathering indoors in groups, notably at house parties and family gatherings, but also at bars, although drinking establishments that do not serve food are not allowed to be open. In many cases, those people are defying state requirements to wear masks.
Placer County health officials have seen similar trends in that county, especially in Roseville, Rocklin and Lincoln. The county had 8.5 new daily cases per 100,000 residents, according to this week’s update.
“This (past) weekend, we saw a sharp increase (in cases), probably due to Halloween celebrations,” said Sacramento County Health Officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye. “People are ignoring our advice not to gather, and we are feeling the impacts of that.”
Newsom made similar comments in a Monday news conference regarding a statewide resurgence of infections.
“People are letting their guard down,” he said. “You’ve got to protect yourself and your loved ones.”
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg put out a plea following the county tier announcement.
“I cannot say clearly enough – for God’s sake, stop gathering,” Steinberg tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “We are doing pretty well with masks and social distancing. It’s not enough.”
Kasirye said her health team has seen instances of people getting the virus in group or family activities, then transmitting it to nursing homes and other congregate care facilities where the most vulnerable residents live — and where cases are again on the rise.
Counties that were demoted will have to accumulate two consecutive weeks meeting all requirements in the three necessary metrics monitored by the state — new cases per 100,000, test positivity rate and a health equity metric — before climbing back to their previous spot.
What must close in Sacramento purple tier
Key effects of the purple-tier designation are:
- Shopping malls will be required to reduce customer capacity from 50% to 25% and close food courts.
- Places of worship must cease indoor services, and hold outdoor gatherings instead.
- Movie theaters must close indoor operations.
- Gyms and fitness centers must again conduct outdoor events only.
- Restaurants, which had been allowed 25% indoor service, must serve outdoors only.
- Museums no longer can open their indoor areas.
Hair salons and barbers are allowed, however, to continue indoor service with limitations. That includes wearing masks. Nail salons, massage therapy and body art also are allowed to continue indoor business. Outdoor playgrounds and recreation facilities are allowed to remain in use.
Kasirye said private schools that are already open will not be affected by the tier change. The Folsom Cordova Unified School District will also be permitted to proceed with reopening campuses this week.
“Those schools already open will not be affected,” Kasirye said. “The ones that are opening this week, they officially opened today, so they are still able to go on with their plans.”
Schools that planned to open next week, though, and “those planning to open later in November will have to put their plans on hold,” Kasirye said. That means Elk Grove and Natomas Unified will have to pause reopening plans.
Elementary schools are able to move forward with applying for reopening waivers, and Kasirye said many schools are in the process of applying.
State and county health officials called on people to take more steps to protect themselves and others, including older people and those who have existing health conditions, the two groups that are most likely to die from COVID-19.
“I feel the pain and the disappointment,” Sacramento health officer Kasirye said. “We were doing so well. We need to all come to the realization that all of us need to do our part in following the guidance and not picking and choosing when to wear masks.
“We know it works. We all need to make sacrifices. We need to do it together so that it pays off.”
Yolo stays in red tier
Neighboring Yolo County remained in the red tier because it reported fewer than seven new daily cases per 100,000 for the survey week, sliding under that mark at 6.7.
Still, Yolo has dealt with a devastating nursing facility outbreak accounting for dozens of new cases in residents and staff since early October. Alderson Convalescent Hospital in Woodland has had 60 residents test positive, 14 of whom died. Another 17 are actively infected, after an earlier outbreak infected 17 and killed three, according to updates from the county and a state dashboard for COVID-19 activity in licensed skilled nursing facilities.
Though by far deadliest there, rising infection totals aren’t contained just to senior care facility settings. In Yolo, congregate care cases continue to account for fewer than 240 of the county’s more than 3,500 cumulative infections. The county reported its overall test positivity rate for the week ending Nov. 1 at 7.1%. That rate had been below 4% to start October.
Yolo shared its own guidance for celebrating holidays this week, with similar recommendations to those that Beilenson described. Yolo health officials also emphasized that it is safer to not share food between households, and that staying local is lower risk than traveling for a holiday gathering, especially out-of-state.
Placer COVID-19 cases spike, lead to red tier
The numbers show Placer County has been hard-hit as well. Its rolling one-week test positivity rate was 1.8% entering October. By Halloween, it had more than doubled to 4.1%, according to the county’s local COVID-19 data dashboard.
Placer health officials recently said more positive cases interviewed by contact tracers in October reported attending a large event than in any previous month of the pandemic.
“The increases we’re seeing in the region and here in Placer are a concern as we head into the holiday season,” said interim health officer Dr. Rob Oldham. “We know many are experiencing pandemic fatigue, but believe if our community keeps the basics in mind - distancing, masks and thinking twice before gathering in person, especially indoors - we can get through this.”
El Dorado County also originally appeared to move to the red tier after a second straight week with too many new cases (5.8 per day per 100,000, above the orange tier’s limit of 4.0).
Public Health Officer Dr. Nancy Williams, however, announced on Tuesday afternoon she will use the state’s adjudication process to make a case for being allowed to stay in the orange tier.
“We will learn whether it is accepted no later than next Tuesday,” she wrote. “Our assignment will remain as the orange tier until we receive word from the state, at which time we will announce the outcome.”
Similar to Sacramento County, Placer and El Dorado’s respective test positivity rates of 4.2% and 2.2% were well within orange-tier levels. But in Placer County, like Sacramento, the percentage has been steadily rising for weeks.
The move from orange to red tier means a few types of indoor entertainment businesses such as bowling alleys must close. It also means other businesses, including indoor restaurants and movie theaters, must reduce their maximum capacity from 50% of normal to 25%. Gyms and fitness centers must reduce from 25% to 10% capacity and close indoor pools.
Statewide rates on the rise
Despite the spike in cases here, California, for the moment, remains one of the best-situated states to withstand the winter. The state entered November from a lower baseline of coronavirus activity compared to a large majority of the U.S. in terms of test positivity and other metrics. A daily analysis by Johns Hopkins University shows that despite growing cases, California had the eighth lowest infection rate of the 50 states as of Monday.
Statewide virus activity has been spiking since about mid-October — new cases have jumped in the past three weeks from about 3,400 a day to 5,000 a day, with the total for hospitalized COVID-19 patients recently growing from 2,250 to just over 3,000.
But for about a month, beginning in September, California’s coronavirus metrics stayed either on a slight decline or plateau at some of the best rates of the entire pandemic. The statewide test positivity rate, a metric Newsom favors in his updates, fell below 4% for the first time during the pandemic on Sept. 11. It whittled all the way down to a low of 2.5% on Oct. 15.
Amid the spike, it has moved back above 3.5%, according to the state health department.
There were nearly 3,000 new COVID-19 infections reported in the four-county Sacramento region from October 30 through November 8, the most new infections over any 10-day period since early September, state data show.
The region’s health officials are reporting new cases at more than double the pace from just three weeks ago.
The same thing is happening across the state – more new cases were reported from Oct. 30 through Nov. 8 than during any 10-day period since late August.
The situation is even worse nationwide. There were just over 1 million new cases reported across the nation from Oct. 30 through Nov. 8, for a rate of 308 new infections per 100,000 people, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
By comparison, there were 126 new infections per 100,000 people in the Sacramento area and 139 per 100,000 people statewide during the same period.
This story was originally published November 10, 2020 at 11:03 AM.
