4 California counties reopen further, rest of state holds steady amid low COVID-19 rates
Four counties making up a small fraction of California’s population were promoted to looser tiers of COVID-19 restrictions in the state’s reopening framework Tuesday morning.
Inyo County advanced out of the strict purple tier and into the red tier; Kern and Lake counties moved from red to orange; and Lassen joined Alpine and Sierra counties as the only three in the least-restrictive yellow tier.
Inyo’s promotion leaves Merced as the only county among the state’s 58 still in the purple tier. Merced again on Tuesday failed to record a week of progress toward that tier, meaning it may not move until April 27 at the earliest.
Thirty-three counties are now in the orange tier and 21 are in red. In the capital region, Sacramento, Placer, Sutter and Yuba counties are all in red while El Dorado and Yolo are in orange.
None of those six recorded a week of progress toward a looser tier in Tuesday’s update. The move from red to orange requires a daily case rate below six per 100,000 residents as well as a test positivity rate below 4%, each for two consecutive weeks.
The four capital counties in the red tier ranged from 3% to 3.9% positivity, but their case rates remained too high for promotion: 8.4 per 100,000 for Placer, 7.8 for Sacramento, 7.3 for Sutter and 6.7 for Yuba.
Nine counties elsewhere in the state made headway and could advance as early as next week: Calaveras, Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mono, San Luis Obispo and Shasta could each join the orange tier, while Colusa and Marin could join the yellow tier, if their infection and test positivity rates hold low enough.
In the red tier, indoor businesses including restaurant dining rooms, gyms and movie theaters are allowed open with modifications. The orange tier allows for looser capacity limits at those establishments and lets a few other entertainment businesses such as bowling alleys open back up. The yellow tier relaxes capacity limits even further.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and state health officials announced last week that California aims to end business restrictions and do away with the tier framework by June 15, provided that COVID-19 hospitalization rates remain sufficiently low and vaccine supply continues at a steady pace. The state’s mask mandate will remain in effect.
CDPH also updated the reopening rules last week to make demotions more difficult. The state in a Thursday update wrote that absent “extenuating circumstances, such as low rate of vaccine take up, a county will only move to a more restrictive tier if hospitalizations are increasing significantly” and infection rates “show a concerning increase in transmission.”
What about indoor sports, other events?
The tier structure also governs crowd levels at larger events such as sports games or concerts, which will be allowed to resume indoors starting this Thursday.
Outdoors, these events can proceed at a maximum of 100 attendees in the purple tier; 20% of normal capacity in the red tier; 33% in the orange tier; and 67% in the orange tier. Outdoor events can also seat up to 67% in the orange tier, if all guests are required to show a negative test or proof of full vaccination.
At indoor venues, crowd events remain closed in the purple tier. They may resume in red-tier counties at a maximum of 10% normal capacity or 100 people at venues that seat up to 1,500, or 25% with testing or proof of vaccination. For venues seating more than 1,500, the 10% capacity limit can increase to 20% with testing or vaccination requirements.
In the orange tier, smaller venues can increase to 15% or 200 people with no vaccine or testing requirements, and to a maximum of 35% with testing or vaccine requirements. In the yellow tier, those rates move to a max of 25% or 300 attendees without testing or vaccines and 50% with testing or vaccination required.
For larger indoor venues in orange and yellow counties, capacity is limited to 10% or 2,000 guests, whichever is fewer, if there is no testing or vaccine requirement in place. With testing or vaccine requirements, an indoor venue with more than 1,500 seats can open at up to 35% capacity in the orange tier and up to 50% in the yellow tier.
Under this guidance, the NBA’s Sacramento Kings on April 20 will host their first game with fans in attendance in more than a year at Golden 1 Center, against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
“Capacity for the first game back will be approximately 1,600 frontline workers preselected in collaboration with local nonprofits and corporate partners,” the team said in a press release.
For subsequent home games, starting April 21, “the Kings will gradually expand the number of paid fans in attendance” in accordance with state and local guidelines.
Golden 1 Center will require either proof of vaccination via receipts showing both doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines seven days prior to the event or the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine at least 14 days before the event; or a negative COVID-19 test completed within 72 hours of the event.
Masks and physical distancing requirements will also be observed.
Latest on vaccines as feds advise pause of J&J shots
On Tuesday morning, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a joint statement recommended a pause on the single-dose vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, following six reports of blood clots in recipients.
Newsom and CDPH in statements later that morning confirmed California has directed providers to pause use of the J&J vaccine.
Close to 7 million doses of J&J have been administered nationwide, including about 900,000 in California, which may have as many as about 1.2 million J&J doses in providers’ inventory, according to state and federal data.
It is unclear how long the pause may last. The CDC will convene an advisory committee meeting Wednesday.
The pause comes as J&J shipments are low due to a nationwide supply issue. California received more than 570,000 doses from the manufacturer last week but was slated to receive only about 67,000 this week, according to federal allocation data from the CDC.
The governor’s office in a statement said allocations “will not be significantly impacted,” and that the state remains on schedule “to fully reopen on June 15.”
Some clinics planned for this week in Sacramento County have already been switched from J&J to Pfizer and/or Moderna.
CDPH reported Monday that California has administered about 23 million vaccine doses to date, which is 82% of the 28.1 million shots delivered by manufacturers.
The state said in Monday’s update that 8.87 million people have been fully vaccinated, and an additional 6.3 million are partially vaccinated with a first dose of Pfizer or Moderna’s two-dose regimens.
That means more than 15 million Californians are at least partially vaccinated, which is 38% of the state’s 40 million residents and about 49% of its roughly 31 million adults.
The state on Thursday will expand eligibility to all residents ages 16 and older, though numerous counties and hospital systems have already opened appointments to that group.
California COVID-19 activity by the numbers
Coronavirus activity continues to trend low in California, though infection and hospitalization rates in some parts of the Sacramento region appear to be plateauing above the statewide rate.
CDPH on Monday reported California’s seven-day test positivity rate at 1.5%, its lowest rate recorded for the entire pandemic and down from an all-time high of 17% near the start of 2021.
About 1,840 were hospitalized with the disease statewide including about 475 in intensive care units, CDPH reported Tuesday, down from winter peaks of about 22,000 hospitalized and 4,900 in ICUs.
Near the capital, though, case rates have been higher than California’s overall rate.
CDPH on Monday reported California’s case rate at an average of 4.7 cases per 100,000 residents over the preceding week. Placer and Sacramento counties had rates of 8.2 and 8.1 per 100,000, respectively, state data show.
Yuba and Sutter counties’ rates were each 7.2 per 100,000, El Dorado’s was 6.1 and Yolo’s matched the statewide rate at 4.7.
Similarly, test positivity rates in the Sacramento area have been higher than California’s overall positivity this past week: Placer County at 3%, Sacramento and El Dorado at 2.9%, Yuba at 2.8% and Sutter at 2.4%, according to CDPH. Only Yolo County, at 0.5%, came in below 1.5%.
These numbers differ from the weekly updates given by CDPH, which assess the data on a delay of more than one week in order to account for data reporting discrepancies.
To date, more than 3.6 million Californians have tested positive for COVID-19 and at least 59,249 deaths from the virus have been confirmed, according to CDPH.
Sacramento area reaches 160,000 total cases, over 2,300 dead
The six-county capital region of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba counties has reported more than 160,000 lab-confirmed cases and at least 2,373 virus deaths over the course of the pandemic.
Sacramento County has reported 100,587 cases and 1,644 resident deaths from COVID-19. The county surpassed the 100,000 milestone in Monday’s update.
The countywide hospitalized total has held mostly steady, reported Tuesday at 88. The patient total has fluctuated between 80 and 97 since March 25, while the ICU total has spiked from 14 to 26 in that time.
Placer County health officials have confirmed a total of 21,540 infections and 279 deaths.
State data on Tuesday showed 44 virus patients in Placer hospitals including nine in ICUs, up from 25 hospitalized and six in intensive care two weeks earlier. Forty-four is the county’s highest reported patient total since early March.
Yolo County has reported 13,402 total cases and 199 deaths.
Yolo had three virus patient hospitalized including two in intensive care as of Tuesday’s state data update, compared to five hospitalized with two in ICUs two weeks earlier.
El Dorado County has reported 9,641 positive test results and 108 deaths. The county has reported one death in the past two weeks.
State data on Tuesday showed El Dorado with five hospitalized patients, one of them in an ICU. El Dorado County had zero hospitalized COVID-19 patients as recently as April 5.
In Sutter County, at least 9,242 residents have tested positive for the virus and 103 have died. Yuba County, which shares a health office with Sutter, has reported 6,073 infections and 40 dead.
The lone hospital serving the Yuba-Sutter bi-county region — Adventist-Rideout in Marysville — had 10 hospitalized virus patients as of Tuesday’s update including one in an ICU. Ten in hospital beds marks Rideout’s highest total since March 18.
This story was originally published April 13, 2021 at 9:33 AM.
