On the day Gov. Gavin Newsom announced sweeping new restrictions in an attempt to control a fast-growing surge in COVID-19, counties around the state combined to report more new cases of the virus than all but one other day of the pandemic, according to data compiled by this news organization.
Altogether, there were 13,609 new cases reported Monday, sending the daily average soaring to its highest point since mid-August. The lone day with more reported cases came following the July 4 weekend, when there were extensive reporting delays; Monday’s total includes a number of counties that didn’t issue updates over the weekend.
In a span of 13 days, the daily average has doubled from about 4,400 to more than 8,800 cases per day — the first time it has eclipsed 8,000 in three months and the fastest doubling time of the pandemic. Over the same time span, the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has increased by 48% to 3,852, according to the latest data from the California Department of Public Health.
On Monday, Newsom said California was seeing an even more rapid increase in transmission now than during its previous largest surge this summer. Currently, the daily average is about 12% below its highest point, which came July 12, but is on pace to surpass that mark this week; it has been climbing at a rate of more than 7% per day over the past week.
Two to three weeks from now, about one in 10 of those new infections will eventually end up in California’s hospital system, Dr. Mark Ghaly, the state’s top health official, said Monday.
Hospitalizations are already on the rise, following an uptick in cases that began about a month ago.
Deaths, which can suffer from reporting delays in addition to the time it takes for the virus to progress through the body, have not yet corresponded with a rise in cases.
California’s highest rate of daily fatalities came almost exactly three weeks after its peak in cases and about two weeks after its peak hospitalization point. Prior to this wave, California’s daily case count was going down for about three weeks, beginning in mid-August, then plateaued at its lowest point for about six weeks. Newly reported deaths in the state have been steadily declining since about mid-September — a span of two months, and close to amount of time infections in California were either declining or flat.
On Monday, despite a near-record for new cases, there were 40 deaths reported around the state — about in line with the daily average for the past week. No jurisdiction reported double-digit fatalities. Sacramento and Riverside counties led the state with seven each, followed by six in Los Angeles County. No other county reported more than three, and in the Bay Area, the death toll Monday amounted to one each in Santa Clara and Marin counties.
In Santa Clara County, there were 379 new cases reported Monday — its third-highest single-day total of the pandemic and its most since mid-August. The daily average there has doubled in a span of two weeks to about 14.2 new cases per 100,000 residents.
In Santa Cruz County, the 186 new cases Monday were its most ever reported in a single day.
In San Francisco, Mayor London Breed said, “This is me sounding the alarm,” as health officials projected the city would hit 14,000 total cases just 12 days after it reached 13,000; it had taken San Francisco 18 days to go from 12,000 to 13,000 and 29 days to reach 12,000 after its 11,000th case.
Across the entire Bay Area, it has taken 19 days for the daily average to double to about 13.3 new cases per 100,000 residents. The 1,647 new cases reported around the region Monday were its third most in a single day of the pandemic.
In California, there have been about 22.3 infections for every 100,000 residents in the past week, while the national rate is about 47.2/100K.
And while California is conducting more tests than ever — nearly 165,000 per day — the percentage that are coming back positive is also rising precipitously. On Monday, the statewide positivity rate reached 5% for the first time since the end of August — barely two weeks since it hit a recent low of 2.9% on Oct. 31.
Nationwide, the positivity rate reached 10% on Monday for the first time since testing was widely available, according to Johns Hopkins University. Two weeks ago, 7% of tests were coming back positive — a full three-point spike in the span of two weeks.
Cases, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 continue to increase across the country.
The U.S. is now averaging 155,000 new cases per day, according to the New York Times — an increase of 82% in the past two weeks and a doubling time of 18 days. There are now more than 73,000 Americans currently hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the COVID Tracking Project — 50% more than there were two weeks ago. And, as the national death toll nears 250,000, the U.S. is averaging 40% more fatalities each day than it was two weeks ago — 1,155 per day, according to the Times’ data — and at least 15 states have reported more in the past two weeks than any other two-week period of the pandemic.
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Coronavirus: California’s cases are skyrocketing, hospitalizations not far behind - The Mercury News
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