Coronavirus updates: Will California’s improving COVID numbers lead to reopenings?
As its coronavirus infection numbers continue to rebound from the winter surge, and with the state’s regional stay-at-home order lifted last week, California’s tier list for counties has regained relevance in the state’s economic reopening process.
A vast majority of the state by population — 54 of its 58 counties, accounting for 99.9% of its 40 million residents — remains in the strict “purple” tier, in which restaurants must stay closed for indoor dining, and other businesses and entities including gyms, movie theaters and places of worship remain barred from operating indoors.
None of the 54 notched the first of two consecutive weeks to meet the requirements of the red tier to progress toward promotion, according to the California Department of Public Health’s weekly update Tuesday morning.
Counties must meet all criteria for the red tier — the main two requirements of which are a test positivity rate below 8% and fewer than seven daily cases per 100,000 residents — for two consecutive weeks to depart the purple tier.
While 30 counties met the test positivity rate standard in this week’s update, up from 23 last week, only four tiny counties — Alpine, Sierra and Trinity, which are already in looser tiers, plus purple-tier Del Norte — also reported daily averages of fewer than seven new cases per 100,000.
The next closest counties were Mariposa, which is already in the red tier, at eight per 100,000, Modoc at 10.6, Amador at 12.2 and San Francisco at 12.5.
However, counties throughout California continued to showed marked improvement in this week and last week’s tier list updates compared to the prior two weeks, which included data from the height of the state’s peak in new cases.
Statewide, test positivity and new case rates have declined sharply since mid-January, and Tuesday’s update, which surveyed numbers for the week ending Jan. 23, reflected broad progress.
In addition to the 30 counties with positivity rates below 8%, another 11 — with Sacramento County front of the line at 8.5% — ranged between 8% and 11%. Placer County’s rate plummeted from 9% last week to 6.6% this week, and El Dorado fell from 10.2% to 7.6%.
Newsom’s proposed reopening plan for schools, though still preliminary as it has not yet been approved by lawmakers, says elementary school campuses (transitional kindergarten through sixth grade) can apply for reopening only in counties with fewer than 25 daily new cases per 100,000 — a threshold about 3 1/2 times higher than the purple tier cutoff.
Twenty-four counties met that mark this week, up from 19 last week, with El Dorado and Placer counties among the most recent to do so. Sacramento County’s rate was reported at 31 cases per 100,000, down from 44 last week.
Progress in reopening has been stalled for nearly three months. The four-tiered, color-coded system to gradually reopen certain types of nonessential businesses and activities appeared to have a relatively smooth start from late August through October.
Then, around the beginning of November, COVID-19 case rates and hospitalizations began to rise sharply and broadly across the state.
The surge stayed on an incline into early January before trends started to reverse. California has entered February on a rapid decline from high winter peaks.
In response to the start of the surge, Gov. Gavin Newsom and his administration in mid-November announced an “emergency brake” reversal, putting the majority of the state’s counties into the strict purple tier, where virtually all of California has remained.
From early December up until the start of last week, the state was split into five geographic regions that were subject to a stay-at-home order tied to intensive care unit availability in each region. State health officials announced Jan. 25 that the regional order was lifted as ICU projections had sufficiently improved across all regions.
California’s COVID-19 activity by the numbers
To date, more than 3.27 million Californians have tested positive for COVID-19 and at least 41,330 have died, according to CDPH data updated Tuesday.
Infections are trending downward statewide. The two-week average for daily new cases has declined from a peak of nearly 41,000 on Jan. 13 to below 20,000 by Tuesday’s update. Test positivity has fallen from 13.4% to 7.2% in the same span.
Close to 14,250 confirmed coronavirus patients remain hospitalized statewide, including a little less than 3,700 in intensive care units, down from peaks of about 22,000 in hospitals and 4,900 in ICUs in the first half of January.
California over the past two weeks has averaged 542 COVID-19 deaths per day, the highest rate of the pandemic. The state surpassed 40,000 deaths less than three weeks after hitting the 30,000 milestone.
Deaths lag behind new cases and hospitalizations by a few weeks, meaning the high death toll continues to reflect the worst of the state’s surge. Fatalities have shown some signs of stabilizing and could soon start to decline, in correlation with falling hospital and ICU admissions.
Has California’s vaccine rollout improved?
According to a Tuesday update from CDPH, the state has administered about 3.65 million doses since Pfizer and Moderna’s two-dose vaccine regimens earned emergency use authorization in mid-December. That total includes both first doses and second doses.
About 5.67 million doses have been delivered to vaccine providers, which include counties’ local health departments and hospital systems that operate in multiple counties.
That means about 64% of shipped doses have been administered, ranking California 14th-lowest among the 50 states plus D.C., according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But it’s a vast improvement from the 37% reported less than two weeks ago, which had ranked California dead-last.
It’s unclear how much of the increase has come from improvement in data reporting as opposed to shots actually being injected at a faster pace.
State and local health officials throughout California, as well as private providers, have bemoaned inadequate supply.
In Placer County, which ranks near the top in terms of doses administered per 100,000 residents, health director and interim health officer Dr. Rob Oldham spoke last week of a “vaccine gap, meaning our current capacity to administer vaccine far exceeds our supply.”
Kaiser Permanente in a statement this week said: “What is limiting appointments is the very limited supply of vaccine California is receiving from the federal government.
“We are receiving a small supply of vaccine in comparison to our membership; we have received only enough to vaccinate 4.5% of our California members,” the Oakland-headquartered managed care medical group wrote.
The federal government allocated about 77,000 more shots to California for this week than it did the previous two weeks, a 16% increase from about 486,000 to 563,000 doses.
The CDC on Tuesday reported California will be allocated about 594,000 doses next week, another boost by about 5%, as the state will receive about 30,000 more Moderna doses.
State epidemiologist Dr. Erica Pan in mid-January said the pace at that point, of 400,000 to 500,000 doses per week, would take about 20 weeks — through June — to vaccinate a sufficient number of Californians ages 65 and older.
A rate of 594,000 per week, if sustained, could shorten that timeline by more than three weeks.
The Biden administration announced last week the federal government plans to start giving states a three-week forecast for expected allocations, but that did not appear to be immediately included in the allocations posted Tuesday morning by the CDC.
To date, the CDC has announced states’ allocations for the following week each Tuesday — less than a week in advance of shipments, creating logistical headaches and scheduling difficulties for vaccine providers.
Cal/OSHA under-reporting workplace deaths
California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, better known as Cal/OSHA, has had “major” problems reliably tracking the number of on-the-job infections contracted during the pandemic at warehouses, offices, factories and other workplaces across the state, a Sacramento Bee investigation found.
Cal/OSHA inspectors determined only 779 serious or deadly infections were contracted in the workplace — a minuscule proportion of the 3.25 million infections reported statewide and less than 2% of the nearly 41,000 fatalities, even as health offices, based on limited contact tracing investigations, have linked far higher percentages of infections to exposure through coworkers.
“You’d think they’d be the major player to monitor cases (in) workplaces,” said attorney Hollie Rutkowski of the Compensation Law Center, a Sacramento law firm that represents injured workers. “OSHA is supposed to monitor places that have outbreaks.”
Latest Sacramento-area numbers: Over 1,800 dead
The six counties that make up the bulk of the 13-county Greater Sacramento region — Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties — have reported about 139,000 combined positive cases and at least 1,823 virus deaths.
Following the statewide trend, the rate of new cases is slowing in all six of those counties; deaths, which lag a few weeks behind infections, continue to pour in.
Sacramento County has confirmed 86,795 cases since the start of the pandemic, and at least 1,271 of those residents have died of COVID-19. The county reported 324 new cases and increased the death toll by nine in a Tuesday morning update.
By date of death occurrence, December and January have been Sacramento County’s two deadliest months of the pandemic. Local health officials have confirmed 377 deaths for December and at least 214 for Jan. 1 through Jan. 28. January’s total will continue to grow significantly, as it can take weeks for death confirmations to be made official.
Prior to December, the county’s deadliest month of the pandemic was August, at 181 virus deaths.
The hospitalized total for virus patients was 325 as of Tuesday’s state data update, down from 339 on Monday. The ICU total has fallen to 93 from a peak of 130 two weeks ago. CDPH reported 68 ICU beds available in Sacramento County as of Tuesday, an increase by 20 since last Friday.
The virus death toll for the city of Sacramento has reached 703 residents, the county reported this week, and nearly 48,000 living within city limits have tested positive. That means roughly one in 10 Sacramentans have tested positive, with one death for about every 710 residents.
Placer County health officials have confirmed a total of 18,608 infections and 201 deaths. Placer on Monday reported 209 cases and two new deaths in an update covering the weekend. The county last Friday reported 132 new cases and seven fatalities.
State data Tuesday showed 102 virus patients in Placer hospitals, down from 105 on Monday and from 121 on Sunday. However, the ICU total grew from 24 on Monday to 26 by Tuesday. The state says 17 ICU beds remain available, up from 13 on Monday.
Yolo County has reported a total of 11,602 cases and 149 deaths, most recently adding 63 cases Monday after reporting 78 on Sunday. Yolo reported two deaths last Friday.
State data showed Yolo with 14 virus patients Tuesday, after its tally of 12 on Monday had marked its lowest total since early November. Seven patients are now in ICUs, down from eight on Monday, with available ICU beds increasing from one to two.
El Dorado County has reported 8,443 positive test results and 81 deaths. The county on Monday reported 84 cases and two deaths in a three-day update covering the weekend. On Friday, El Dorado reported 36 new cases and five deaths.
El Dorado has reported a remarkable surge in virus deaths: 77 residents have died of COVID-19 since late November, compared to four from March through mid-November.
State health officials on Monday reported 12 virus patients in El Dorado hospitals, down from 17 Sunday, with the ICU total holding at three. Nine ICU beds now remain available, two more than on Sunday.
In Sutter County, at least 8,264 people have contracted the virus and 89 have died. Sutter on Monday added 91 new cases and three deaths for the three-day reporting window including the weekend.
Neighboring Yuba County has reported 5,389 infections and 32 dead. The county added 65 new cases and one fatality in a Monday update covering the weekend.
The lone hospital serving the Yuba-Sutter bicounty region — Adventist-Rideout in Marysville — had 39 hospitalized virus patients as of Tuesday’s state data update, down from 43 both Sunday and Monday. The ICU total dipped from 13 to 11, but the available ICU bed count dropped from four to two.
This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 8:47 AM with the headline "Coronavirus updates: Will California’s improving COVID numbers lead to reopenings?."
