California’s Covid-19 Test Positivity Rate Ticks Up For the First Time This Year
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One week after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced the state would, on June 15, leave its tiered restriction system behind, the first signs of a Covid-19 resurgence have appeared.
For the first time in 2021, the state’s 7-day test positivity rate ticked up. And it did so two days this week.
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Last week, California’s test positivity rate was 1.7%, where it had been since March 23. On Tuesday, the state’s data dashboard indicated the 7-day test positivity rate had risen to 1.8%. On Wednesday, the rate went to 1.9%, where it remained as of Thursday’s report.
While ever-so-sleight, the number may be significant, since it’s the first time since December 31 that it has ticked up. And while the CA Covid-19 dashboard notes the data is incomplete for the Wednesday and Thursday reports, the test positivity rate is a 7-day average, which is meant to smooth such variations. Plus, the number was on the rise even before the past two days.
The rise comes as some key Covid-19 numbers have stalled in Los Angeles, Orange County, the Bay Area and Sacramento and San Diego this week; and also as the number of variants across the state has multiplied to include the so-called “double mutant” first discovered in India and the first cases of the Brazil and South African strains in Los Angeles County.
Even more concerning, however, is that the majority of Covid-19 test samples genomically analyzed in Los Angeles County last week turned out to be variants of concern, meaning the variants are now more common than the “wild” version of the virus among those newly infected. That list from L.A. was led by the more infectious U.K. variant — known as B.1.1.7 — which this week also became the dominant strain in the U.S.
What’s more, doses of the much-sought-after Johnson & Johnson vaccine are set to plummet 90% next week, even as the state allows everyone ages 16+ to get the vaccine. And newly-eligible Californians 16-49 years old may be the group that needs the vaccine most right now.
Numbers shared by Los Angeles County Public Health officials on Wednesday indicate that Covid-related hospitalizations have risen in the past two weeks with every age cohort between the ages of 12 and 49. At the same time, the number of available ICU beds has ticked down. (Reminder here that Californians ages 50+ became eligible last week while those 65+ have been getting vaccinated since mid-January.) See chart below.
Cases among young adults are also rising across the nation, according to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the head of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The trends and data have been indicating cases are increasing nationally as we are seeing this occur predominantly in younger adults,” she said on Monday.
Those conclusions were amplified a day later by Dr. Anthony Fauci. “We’re seeing more and more young people get into serious trouble,” he said, “namely severe disease, requiring hospitalization and occasionally even tragic deaths in quite young people.”
The rising numbers, if they continue, could put to the test Governor Newsom’s assertion this week — and for the past year — that any reopenings will be “driven by data.”
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