Five counties promoted in California COVID tier restrictions. Placer makes progress

Five counties moved to more-relaxed COVID-19 restriction levels in California’s tiered reopening system Tuesday, and two Sacramento-area counties recorded progress toward looser tiers and could advance as early as next week.

Sacramento County, though, appears to be staying put in the red tier for at least two more weeks.

Amador, Orange, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties all moved from orange to the loosest tier in the framework, yellow, in a weekly update from the California Department of Public Health. Tehama County moved from red to orange.

Tuolumne had entered the week eligible to move to yellow, and Yuba was positioned to advance to orange, but both stayed put as their case rates spiked back above the required levels.

Ten counties remain in the red tier, including Sacramento and Placer. But Placer on Tuesday recorded the first of two required, back-to-back weeks meeting orange-tier requirements and could go orange as early as next week.

Sacramento County did not meet orange criteria, falling just short, and so will be stuck in the red tier through at least June 1 — just two weeks before tier restrictions are supposed to end statewide.

To move from red to orange, a county must record an average daily case rate below six per 100,000 residents in two consecutive weekly updates from CDPH.

Placer squeaked in Tuesday at 5.9 per 100,000. Sacramento just missed out at 6.3 per 100,000.

Merced is also eligible to join the orange tier as early as next week. Inyo, Plumas and Yolo could move to yellow.

Aside from Sacramento, the seven other counties that will be stuck in the red tier through the rest of May are Del Norte, Nevada, San Joaquin, Shasta, Solano and Stanislaus. Nevada County barely fell short, recording 6.1 cases per 100,000.

Most of the state’s 58 counties are in the orange tier, which allows most businesses to be open with modifications including social distancing and capacity limit requirements. Thirteen counties, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, are in the yellow tier, which allows for higher capacity limits than orange.

Red-tier counties are subject to tighter capacity limits than the orange tier, and a few types of businesses — mostly indoor, entertainment-based establishments — are ordered to remain closed.

No California county has been in the strictest tier, purple, since early April. Purple restrictions kept restaurant dining rooms, gyms, movie theaters and several other types of establishments closed for indoor operations.

Local health officials have stressed the importance of getting vaccinated, as Sacramento County residents have consistently trailed California’s statewide rates for full and partial vaccination by a few percentage points each.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state health chief Dr. Mark Ghaly on Monday announced California will wait until June 15 to implement recent guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying those who are fully vaccinated do not need to wear masks in most settings. The statewide mask mandate has been in place since last June.

Newsom and CDPH say that the June 15 target for reopening California’s economy would only be delayed by significant setbacks to COVID-19 hospitalizations or vaccine supply, neither of which have materialized in the six weeks since that date was first announced.

“We encourage everyone to remain vigilant, to adhere to the California mask mandate, in anticipation that all of our businesses will be able to open up safely on June 15,” Sacramento County health spokeswoman Janna Haynes said Monday. “The last thing we want to happen is a late-breaking surge of cases because people have decided they no longer need to be careful.”

More COVID-19 record lows for California

Statewide coronavirus transmission has continued to dwindle, building on previous progress and regularly setting new record lows in key metrics.

CDPH on Monday and Tuesday reported California’s test positivity at 0.9% for the prior seven days — the first time since testing began that the rate has dropped beneath 1%. At its worst point during the winter surge, California’s positivity topped 17%.

Virus hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 are also at their lowest points since the earliest weeks of the health crisis.

CDPH on Tuesday reported a seven-day average of 20 deaths per day, which is the state’s lowest since March 28, 2020. The crisis peaked at more than 670 deaths per day in early January.

In Monday’s update, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in hospital beds fell below 1,400 for the first time since March 2020, including a record-low 328 in intensive care units.

Over the course of the pandemic, California has recorded about 3.67 million lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 61,513 deaths from the disease.

Three-fifths of eligible Californians have had a vaccine, CDC says

More than 15.7 million Californians are now fully vaccinated, and close to 20.5 million have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, CDPH said Tuesday.

California last Thursday opened vaccine eligibility to adolescents ages 12 through 15, who make up roughly 2 million of the state’s 39.5 million residents.

According to CDC, 62% of California’s 12-and-older population is now at least partially vaccinated. That’s six percentage points higher than the national average of 56%, and ranks 11th highest among the 50 states.

Sacramento area: Deaths slowing, but toll inches toward 2,500

The six-county capital region of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba counties has reported more than 167,000 lab-confirmed cases and at least 2,454 virus deaths over the course of the pandemic.

Sacramento County has reported 105,164 cases and 1,693 resident deaths from COVID-19, last updated Tuesday. The county health office has added 15 confirmed virus fatalities in the past week, .

The countywide hospitalized total is declining, reported Tuesday at 85, down from 94 on May 10. The ICU total has dropped from 22 to 19.

Placer County health officials have confirmed a total of 22,720 infections and 293 deaths through Monday. Placer has reported two deaths in the past week.

State data on Tuesday showed 37 virus patients in Placer hospitals, down from 48 at the start of last week, while the ICU count rose from six to seven.

Yolo County has reported 13,874 total cases and 208 deaths, with one death added in the past week.

Yolo had one virus patients hospitalized as of Tuesday’s state data update and none in intensive care, down from four hospitalized and one in an ICU on May 10.

El Dorado County has reported 10,213 positive test results and 113 deaths. El Dorado has reported one death in the past week.

State data on Tuesday showed El Dorado with two hospitalized patients, neither in an ICU, after having no virus patients hospitalized one week prior.

In Sutter County, at least 9,459 residents have tested positive for the virus and 106 have died, with one new death reported in the past week. Yuba County, which shares a health office with Sutter, has reported 6,292 infections and 41 dead, with no deaths recorded int he past week.

Adventist-Rideout in Marysville — Yuba-Sutter bi-county region’s lone hospital — had dropped to five hospitalized virus patients as of Tuesday’s update, down from seven one week earlier, ICU total grew from one to two.