Coronavirus updates: Over 3,000 Californians hospitalized for first time in 2 months
Coronavirus activity continues to elevate in California, where health officials have reported more than 7,000 new lab-confirmed infections on back-to-back days and where the hospitalized total has crossed a milestone not exceeded in two months.
California on Monday morning surpassed 3,000 patients hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID-19 for the first time since Sept. 10, with 838 of them in intensive care units, the most since Sept. 16.
Those numbers mean coronavirus patients occupy 4% of all hospital beds — filled or not — and 11% of all ICU beds, Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a Monday news conference. COVID-19 cases currently make up 16% of the ICU beds occupied by a patient for any cause of admission; close to 2,300 ICU beds were available as of Monday.
Hospital and ICU totals are up 32% and 38%, respectively, in the past two weeks, an alarming sign that seriously ill coronavirus cases are once again rising sharply in the state.
California is now averaging more than 5,000 daily new COVID-19 cases over the past two weeks, with Sunday’s 7,682 and Monday’s 7,212 marking the two highest daily totals total since Aug. 15, according to the California Department of Public Health. The rolling average had held below 3,400 daily cases through the first three weeks of October but has been steadily rising since then. Prior to Monday, it hadn’t been above 5,000 since early September.
The numbers have spiked enough that 13 counties spread across California face the prospect of being demoted as early as this Tuesday to a stricter tier within the state’s reopening system.
Four of those counties — Sacramento, San Diego, Stanislaus and Yolo — could be moved back to the most-restrictive purple tier if their state-assessed coronavirus numbers from the week ending on Halloween don’t show improvement. That would mean the closure of restaurant dining, places of worship, gyms, shopping malls and a few other types of businesses and activities for indoor operations in those jurisdictions.
Ten counties totaling more than one-third of California’s 40 million residents, including Los Angeles, are already in the purple tier and subject to those shutdowns.
Newsom said Monday to anticipate “some counties moving backwards, not forwards” in the reopening process. The impacted counties won’t be shared until CDPH releases its weekly list of tier assignments on Tuesday, but state Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly confirmed later in the news conference that no counties will be promoted.
While the state continues to boost testing capacity, tests haven’t increased enough to account for the current uptick in cases, a fact reflected by a rising positivity rate. That metric was 4.1% for the week ending Monday and 3.7% for the past two weeks. The two-week average had been as low as 2.5% in mid-October.
“When your testing goes up, you anticipate seeing more cases,” Newsom said in Monday’s news conference. “But it’s the positivity rate that we track with points of obvious concern — percentage of people testing positive gives us a sense of what’s really happening.”
Hospital numbers have been rising rapidly in various parts of the state, including San Bernardino, San Diego, Riverside and Ventura counties in Southern California; Sacramento and Placer counties in the capital region; Monterey County along the coast; San Joaquin County in the Central Valley; and Santa Clara County in the Bay Area. A few others, including Fresno, Los Angeles and Orange counties, have been on a slower and steadier incline, dating back to September.
None of the state’s key metrics are close yet to what California recorded at the height of its summer surge. The state in late July had an average of about 9,500 new daily cases, along with peaks of over 7,200 hospitalized and 2,000 in ICUs. At that point in the pandemic, about 7.5% of tests were returning positive.
But the recent numbers are made more concerning by a flurry of factors expected to widely increase coronavirus spread in the waning weeks of 2020. Adding to the worry, the U.S. is already fighting its most intense nationwide surge yet, with figures on the uptrend in almost every state.
Cold weather just recently arriving in California, plus Thanksgiving and the winter holidays, will all drive more people to gather indoors, where there is a much higher risk of COVID-19 spread than outdoors. Health officials have repeatedly cautioned people not to let their guard down with family and friends.
To date, nearly 972,000 Californians have tested positive, and over 17,900 have died of the highly contagious respiratory disease, according to CDPH. The state is well on track to reach 1 million confirmed cases before the start of next week.
Wednesday will mark eight months since the World Health Organization officially declared the COVID-19 crisis a pandemic. The global infection total surpassed 50 million over the weekend and the U.S. hit 10 million Monday morning, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Officials continue to urge the public to maintain six feet of social distance, to wear a face covering when that distance can’t be kept and to avoid large gatherings that bring members of different households together.
Pfizer: COVID-19 vaccine is 90% effective
U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced Monday morning that the coronavirus vaccine it is developing, which is in the late stages of clinical trials, appears to be 90% effective in preventing COVID-19.
The company shared the remarkably high percentage with the public following an interim analysis that focused on 94 infections from its ongoing clinical study, in which nearly 44,000 people have enrolled.
In a news release, Pfizer cautioned that the rate of protection could change as more data are analyzed in the coming weeks.
But 90% effectiveness or anything near that figure would be monumental, and the announcement has already sparked great optimism from the scientific community.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, called it “extraordinary” and well above expectations, The Associated Press reported Monday.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has set a minimum of 50% effectiveness for any potential COVID-19 vaccine; that’s roughly what the seasonal flu vaccine is able to achieve most years. Fauci previously said a vaccine with 60% effectiveness would be a win in the fight against coronavirus.
A 90% effective vaccine would have “a major impact on everything we do with respect to COVID,” he said.
Pfizer could apply later in November for emergency use approval from the FDA, but will need to study at least 70 more infections from the clinical trial and also accumulate more safety data before it can do so.
“This is a first but critical step in our work to deliver a safe and effective vaccine,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a prepared statement.
Newsom announced last month that California will create a panel of top experts to independently review and approve any potential COVID-19 vaccine prior to distribution in the state. Washington, Oregon and Nevada joined that plan days later.
“This vaccine plan will move at the speed of trust,” Newsom said in October.
Public trust has been an issue, as vaccine candidates worldwide are being developed at record speeds in efforts to end the pandemic. A survey of more than 1,700 adults recently released by the Public Policy Institute of California found that about 20% would “probably not” and another 20% would “definitely not” get a COVID-19 vaccine.
Close to two-thirds of respondents in the California survey said they had concerns about a potential vaccine being rushed.
A vaccine is not expected to be widely available to the general public until 2021, likely at least a few months into the year. Any vaccine approved for early use will first be rationed to the most vulnerable groups, which include health workers and elderly populations, health experts have made clear.
17 dead of COVID-19 at Woodland skilled nursing facility
The coronavirus death toll at Alderson Convalescent Hospital has now reached 17 over the course of two separate outbreaks, making the Woodland facility one of the most devastated senior care hot spots in Northern California.
Three patients at Alderson died in a July outbreak that infected 17 residents and 10 staff members. Then, around the start of October, another 59 residents and more than a dozen additional employees contracted COVID-19, according to a CDPH dashboard that tracks coronavirus activity in licensed skilled nursing facilities.
CDPH now reports 17 total deaths at Alderson, all in residents, meaning 14 have died in the current outbreak. Six of those deaths have been reported in the past week. The state reports that 16 residents still had active infections as of Sunday.
Alderson has the second-highest death toll among long-term care facilities in the Sacramento area. Nineteen residents died at Whitney Oaks Care Center in Sacramento County, where 92 residents and 80 staff tested positive, according to the state dashboard.
Senior facilities in Yolo County have been ravaged by the virus. Stollwood Convalescent Hospital, also in Woodland, had to close permanently at the end of September after a spring outbreak killed 17, including at least one staff member. Alderson is licensed for 140 beds; Stollwood had 48.
Two assisted living facilities in Woodland have also reported multiple resident deaths from COVID-19. At least 38 of Yolo County’s 63 total coronavirus deaths have been linked to long-term care facilities, as of a Sunday update to the county’s virus dashboard.
Statewide, skilled nursing and assisted living facilities have accounted for a little more than one-third of California’s confirmed COVID-19 deaths.
In spiking Placer, 20% of October cases linked to gatherings
New COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are swelling quickly in Placer County. Unlike neighboring Sacramento and Yolo counties, Placer has not had significant case totals connected to senior care facilities in recent weeks.
Dr. Rob Oldham, the county’s interim health officer, said in a presentation to the Board of Supervisors last week that there’s evidence “some in our community are letting down their guard.”
Placer health officials last Friday shared a detailed report on coronavirus activity for October, which largely affirmed that the main drivers of increased case totals are believed to be gatherings and transmission within households. Nearly 45% of cases had another positive case in the same household, the county said.
Placer County reported that 140 of 710 infected persons interviewed in October told contact tracers that they had recently attended a large gathering. That’s about 20%, which county health officials say is the highest for any month in the pandemic.
Those 140 break down into the following: 66 said they attended a gathering with family and/or friends (47%); 65 went to an undefined “other” gathering, for which the county did not provide more specific description (46%); 25 attended a religious gathering (18%); 18 went to an event in a different state (13%); nine went to weddings (6.4%); eight were linked to sports (5.7%); and one infected person attended a protest (less than 1%). There is overlap, with dozens reporting going to multiple different types of gatherings.
Those numbers don’t reveal any surprise in terms of potential transmission settings. Health officials note that it’s nearly impossible to definitively point to the source of infection for any given case.
“In fact, a person with COVID often has a long list of potential community exposures,” the report reads.
Young adult dies of COVID-19 in Butte County
Butte County public health officials on Monday announced the death of young adult infected with COVID-19 who did not have any underlying health conditions. The person died at a hospital and was in their 20s, according to a news release from the county.
County health officials did not release any further information about the young person who died. They said this death was the second time a young adult in Butte County has died due to complications from the respiratory disease.
The county on Monday also announced the death of a person infected with COVID-19 was in the age category of 75 years old and older. This person was a resident of a “congregate living facility,” according to the news release. There was no further information about this person’s death.
A total of 56 people in Butte County have died due to complications from COVID-19, and a total of 3,297 infections have been reported there, according to the county.
Latest Sacramento-area numbers: Resident infections top 41,000
The six-county Sacramento region has combined for at least 662 COVID-19 deaths and more than 41,000 lab-confirmed infections since the start of the pandemic.
Sacramento County has recorded a total of 28,237 cases and 513 deaths in the past eight months. Health officials reported 707 new cases for the three-day period ending Monday, a daily average of 236 after reporting 252 on Friday and 235 on Thursday.
The county has confirmed 50 deaths for October, a total that continues to grow as officials confirm the cause of deaths, and its first fatality of November in a resident who died Nov. 2. Just over 115 died in September and nearly 180 died in August.
There were 136 patients hospitalized with coronavirus in Sacramento County as of Monday, a huge spike from 90 reported last Friday, according to state data. The number of ICU patients is 27, up from 20 on Friday.
The county now estimates a little more than 3,000 cases are currently active. Though a rough estimate, that figure had been trimmed to down about 1,700 in early October, when new infections were on a plateau.
Yolo County has reported 3,527 total infections and 63 deaths from COVID-19. The county reported 34 new cases Monday afternoon and 31 new cases Sunday.
Yolo had four patients in hospitals with COVID-19 as of Monday, down from seven last Friday, with three still in ICUs.
Placer County has reported 4,853 total infections and 60 deaths. The county reported 161 new cases Monday evening, which included cases that accumulated over the weekend. The county reported 52 new cases Friday, 98 Thursday and 15 Wednesday.
Placer reported on its local hospitalization dashboard Friday that it had 30 patients in hospital beds being treated specifically for COVID-19, including four in ICUs. State data for Placer County on Monday showed 42 hospitalized and seven in ICUs. Unlike the county, the state does not break down hospitalized cases by cause of admission.
Placer also reports its test positivity rate was 3.9% for the week ending Oct. 28, the most recent with data available. That’s the county’s highest weekly rate since Sept. 7.
El Dorado County is one of a small number of counties in California with a single-digit death toll, with just four fatalities since the start of the pandemic. Health officials have reported a tally of 1,537 cases as of Monday afternoon, adding 50 new cases from over the weekend. The county reported 18 news cases Friday, following 10 on Thursday and 15 on Wednesday.
El Dorado has two hospitalized COVID-19 patients, both in ICUs, as of Monday.
Sutter County health officials have reported a total of 2,030 people positive for coronavirus and 12 deaths. The county reported six new cases Sunday. Four people infected with COVID-19 were hospitalized as of Sunday, and one person was in intensive care, according to county health officials.
Yuba County officials have reported a total of 1,469 infections and 10 COVID-19 deaths. The county reported 25 new cases Sunday. Yuba had one patient infected with COVID-19 hospitalized and in an ICU Sunday.
Sutter and Yuba, which share a bicounty health office, are both in the red tier and did not gain a week toward promotion or demotion last week.
50 million infections: World, US continue record-breaking surge
More than 50 million cases have been reported worldwide, with the United States reaching 10 million on Monday morning, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. More than 1.7 million new global cases were reported Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The global death toll was over 1.26 million Monday afternoon, with more than 238,000 dead of the virus in the United States.
The U.S. added more than 100,000 cases for the fifth consecutive day on Sunday, after Saturday set a record with over 126,000. The nation leads the world in deaths and infections.
Brazil is next by death toll at 162,000, and over 126,000 have died in India. Mexico is approaching six figures, with 95,000 reported dead as of Monday afternoon. The United Kingdom is a few hundred shy of 50,000.
Next are Italy at nearly 42,000, France at over 41,000 and Spain just over 39,000. Nearly 39,000 have also died in Iran, followed by nearly 35,000 in Peru, almost 34,000 in Argentina and approaching 33,000 in Colombia.
Russia recently surpassed 30,000 deaths. South Africa is nearing 20,000.
After the U.S. by infections are India at 8.5 million, Brazil at 5.6 million, France at 1.8 million and Russia at nearly 1.8 million. Spain, Argentina, the United Kingdom and Colombia all have between 1.1 million and 1.35 million cases. Mexico, Italy and Peru have recorded more than 900,000.
This story was originally published November 9, 2020 at 9:48 AM with the headline "Coronavirus updates: Over 3,000 Californians hospitalized for first time in 2 months."
