5 California counties move to orange COVID-19 restrictions, Sacramento stays in red

Health officials on Tuesday updated tier assignments in California’s reopening framework, promoting five counties to looser levels of coronavirus restrictions as the state enjoys some of the lowest transmission numbers in the U.S.

Calaveras, Fresno, Kings, Mono and Santa Barbara counties all advanced from the red tier to orange, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Another five counties that had entered this week eligible to move to a less restrictive tier, however, did not promote because their COVID-19 case rates spiked too high: Madera, San Luis Obispo and Shasta fell short of the requirements to join the orange tier, while Colusa and Marin counties failed to move to the loosest tier, yellow.

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.

The tier levels also dictate maximum crowd sizes — with and without vaccine or testing requirements — at both indoor and outdoor sporting events and live performance venues.

Five orange-tier counties — Mariposa, Mendocino, Plumas, Santa Cruz and Tuolumne — recorded one week of progress toward the yellow tier, and could advance next week if their test positivity rates and cases per 100,000 residents remain sufficiently low, according to CDPH. Amador, Glenn and Sutter counties could also move from red to orange as early as next week.

In the capital region, Sacramento and Placer remain among the 14 counties still in the red tier, with neither notching a week of progress toward orange.

The main thresholds between red and orange are a test positivity rate below 4% and a daily case rate below six per 100,000 residents. Sacramento had a positivity rate of 3.5% and Placer was at 3.4%, but each recorded a daily average of nine cases per 100,000.

Neighboring El Dorado and Yolo are among the 41 orange-tier counties, but neither made progress toward the yellow tier.

No counties remain in the tightest tier, purple, after Merced County moved out of those restrictions through an adjudication process with the state last week.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and CDPH announced earlier this month that the state plans to fully reopen its economy — doing away with business restrictions and the tier list but keeping the mask mandate in place — by June 15, provided that hospitalization rates stay low and vaccine supply remains steady.

Newsom said last week California remains on track to reopen by that date, even as a federally recommended pause on the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine has now halted use of one of the three authorized jabs for over a week.

California infections, hospitalizations, deaths all dropping

California’s key COVID-19 metrics are all at or close to their lowest levels since the start of the pandemic.

CDPH on Tuesday reported 1,606 new lab-confirmed cases and 32 virus deaths, with averages of about 2,300 cases and 80 deaths reported daily over the past week.

During the worst of the winter surge in early January, the state was suffering about 40,000 new cases and more than 500 deaths a day on average.

About 1,800 patients remain hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 across the state, including 431 in intensive care units. Those are down from winter peaks of about 22,000 hospitalized and 4,900 in ICUs. On Sunday, CDPH reported California’s lowest ICU patient count of the entire pandemic at 407.

Statewide test positivity has trimmed to 1.3% for the past seven days, improving on an already record low. The metric, which monitors spread of the virus while controlling for fluctuations in testing capacity, peaked around 17% in early January and, until late February, hadn’t dropped below 3% since testing efforts began.

Data tracking by Johns Hopkins University on Tuesday showed California with the lowest positivity rate among all 50 states plus Washington, D.C., reporting it at a flat 1%. The nationwide rate was 4.9%.

Vaccine progress: 10 million Californians fully vaccinated

California this past weekend surpassed 10 million residents fully vaccinated with either two shots of Pfizer or Moderna or one shot of J&J, according to daily updates from CDPH.

The state broadly opened eligibility for the jab to all ages 16 and older beginning last Thursday.

As of Tuesday’s state data update, about 10.44 million are fully vaccinated and another 6.53 million partially vaccinated, putting the state just shy of 17 million people at least partially protected via vaccination.

That’s more than half of the state’s 16-and-older population with at least one dose, according to CDPH.

Sacramento area by the numbers

The six-county capital region of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba counties has reported more than 162,000 lab-confirmed cases and at least 2,383 virus deaths over the course of the pandemic.

Sacramento County has reported 101,665 cases and 1,647 resident deaths from COVID-19, as of Tuesday morning. The county has added four deaths in the past week.

The countywide hospitalized total has been climbing some, reported Tuesday at 97, up from 88 one week earlier, but still well below the all-time high of nearly 520 a few days before Christmas. The ICU total has held mostly steady, moving from 26 to 25 in the past week.

Placer County health officials have confirmed a total of 21,878 infections and 283 deaths, also reporting four deaths in the past week.

State data on Tuesday showed 42 virus patients in Placer hospitals including eight in ICUs, down slightly from 44 and nine, respectively, one week earlier.

Yolo County has reported 13,505 total cases and 200 deaths, reporting one death in the past week.

Yolo had two virus patient hospitalized including one in intensive care as of Tuesday’s state data update, compared to three hospitalized with two in ICUs one week earlier.

El Dorado County has reported 9,777 positive test results and 109 deaths. The county has reported one death in the past week, and two total in the past three weeks.

State data on Tuesday showed El Dorado with two hospitalized patients, both in intensive care, compared to five hospitalized with one in an ICU a week earlier.

In Sutter County, at least 9,292 residents have tested positive for the virus and 104 have died. Yuba County, which shares a health office with Sutter, has reported 6,110 infections and 40 dead. Sutter reported one new death in the past week, while Yuba reported none.

The lone hospital serving the Yuba-Sutter bi-county region — Adventist-Rideout in Marysville — had six hospitalized virus patients as of Tuesday’s update including two in the ICU, compared to 10 hospitalized with one in intensive care one week earlier.