California’s COVID-19 positive test rate declines. Did closing bars and malls work?
After months of escalating COVID-19 rates, California is finally seeing some promising declines, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday.
About 6 percent of coronavirus tests came back positive in the last week, down from an 8 percent peak, Newsom said. The number of COVID-19 patients in California hospitals declined 10 percent since mid-July.
Last week 7,764 people tested positive for the virus, a 21.2 percent decrease from the previous week.
“That’s good news,” Newsom said at a noon press conference, though he said it’s not good enough. The World Health Organization has recommended that communities maintain a positivity rate of 5% or lower for 14 days before reopening.
As cases rose at the end of June, the Democratic governor on July 1 ordered reversed his orders, for counties on the state’s “watch” list, governing some businesses he had previously allowed to open Bars closed, restaurants were once again asked to stop indoor dining, and the state shut down such family entertainment venues as movie theaters and bowling alleys for most of the population.
At the same time, the state began a public relations campaign urging Californians to wear masks, delivering the message in multiple languages.
Two weeks later, Newsom added closures for indoor operations at gyms, churches, salons and malls in counties not meeting state guidelines for infection.
The governor said it’s possible that “all of the above” contributed to the current decline, while cautioning that the trend is not yet clear. In critiquing his own performance, he has repeatedly said that the state didn’t focus enough in the first round of opening on educating the public about the caution and behavioral changes that would be required.
Once the state starts seeing consistent declines in its infection rates, he said officials need to do more to more to educate the average person about how to avoid spreading the virus.
“We can quickly find ourselves back to where we were just a few weeks ago, a month ago, with significant increases, if we do not maintain our vigilance,” Newsom said. “This virus is not going away.”
Newsom also warned, as he often does, that aggregate data for the nation’s largest state doesn’t tell the full story. Even as California’s overall numbers improve, the Central Valley has emerged as the state’s most concerning hot spot.
Last week, a teen in Fresno County became the the first minor to die from the coronavirus in California. Merced County reported its highest daily death toll Friday. Stanislaus County intensive care units reached full capacity two weeks ago.
“We feel like it’s really all hands on deck,” Fresno’s health officer Dr. Rais Vohra said last week. “We’re going to have to really do our due diligence to help protect everyone in our community.”
Newsom sent several “strike teams” to the region, a strategy the governor says was successful in Imperial County, which was the state’s most serious trouble spot earlier in the summer.
Newsom steered $52 million in federal aid money to the Central Valley last week. On Monday, he said he’s also secured $6.5 million in philanthropic aid to help Valley families in need pay for food, rent, utilities, and other supplies.
The Democratic governor also said bluntly on Monday that the world is still in the first wave of this pandemic. His administration predicts there will be a second wave this fall, complicated for health care workers and hospitals by the start of the annual flu season.
“It’s not going to take ... Halloween off, or the holidays off,” Newsom said. “Until we have therapeutics, until we have a vaccine, we’re going to be living with this virus.”
This story was originally published August 3, 2020 at 3:38 PM with the headline "California’s COVID-19 positive test rate declines. Did closing bars and malls work?."