Coronavirus updates: 5 California counties move tiers; update on sports, theme parks

With COVID-19 numbers plateauing in California, the state’s reopening progress shows some signs of slowing its pace.

Two counties that have recently struggled with the coronavirus — Shasta in the northern Sacramento Valley and Riverside in Southern California — were demoted back to the most-restrictive purple stage in this week’s update to the state health department’s tier list.

The downgrade means Shasta and Riverside counties have until Friday to close indoor operations at restaurants, places of worship, gyms, shopping malls and a few other types of businesses. And, based on the rules in place from the California Department of Public Health, all of those must remain closed for the next three weeks, at a minimum.

Two other Northern California counties, Butte and Napa, advanced from the red tier to the orange tier. That means they can double their maximum capacities for those businesses to 50% of their usual limit. They can also let a few more indoor entertainment businesses reopen, such as bowling alleys.

San Francisco improved from the orange tier to the least-restrictive yellow tier. It qualified for accelerated promotion to this tier because it excelled in the state’s “health equity” requirement. For the survey week observed to set this week’s tiers, only 1.5% of residents tested for COVID-19 living in what the state considers to be San Francisco’s disadvantaged neighborhoods had a positive result.

Those five were were the only counties to move tiers Tuesday, when CDPH released its seventh weekly update to an initial Sept. 1 list classifying California’s 58 counties into four risk levels based on their COVID-19 metrics. The tiers are purple, red, orange and yellow.

There are now 12 purple counties, nine in yellow and the remaining 37 are in the middle two tiers.

How does the Sacramento area fare in reopening process?

An effort to keep reopening gradual, and to ward off a surge in cases like the one experienced over the summer, counties must stay in a tier for at least three weeks and meet all of the next tier’s three criteria for two straight weeks in order to be promoted.

The criteria include new case rate per 100,000 residents, test rate positivity as a percentage and a health equity metric introduced by the state earlier this month.

Five of the six counties in the Sacramento region — Sacramento, Yolo and Yuba in the red; El Dorado and Placer in the orange — stayed put in this week’s update and also did not notch a week of progress toward their next tiers. But none of them moved in the direction of demotion, either.

Sutter County, adjacent to Yuba, achieved its first of two required weeks meeting all orange criteria, but it has also only been in the red tier for one week. That means the earliest it can move to the orange tier would be Nov. 3, in order to meet the three-week minimum stay in each tier.

Unfortunately, it appears the capital won’t meet the goal county officials set earlier this month to “turn Sacramento orange” before Halloween. Its new case total, averaging 4.4 new daily infections per 100,000 residents for the survey week of Oct. 4-10, slightly exceeded the orange-tier ceiling of 4.0. If it improves to orange levels next week and maintains that rate the following week, it could move to that tier Nov. 3.

All six counties met the health equity requirement this week, CDPH data show.

California releases sports, theme park guidelines

The two least-restrictive tiers, orange and yellow, now have additional significance in terms of reopening, especially for Californians who love football and/or roller coasters.

Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly announced in a Tuesday news conference the state’s new guidelines for fan attendance at outdoor sporting events, as well as for the reopening of theme parks, within those two tiers.

Disneyland is located in Orange County, which — despite having a confusing county name for these purposes — has been in the red tier for six straight weeks.

Of the “Big Four” major pro sports leagues in North America, two (the NBA and NHL) are played indoors, with neither currently in season. Though the Los Angeles Dodgers are in the World Series, games are being held this year at a neutral site in Arlington, Texas, meaning Major League Baseball is done in California until at least spring.

For the immediate future, that leaves the NFL, which has three California teams — the San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers — and just finished Week 6 of its 17-week regular season.

Los Angeles County remains in the purple tier and fans possibly won’t be able to attend a game before the end of the season in 10 weeks. Santa Clara County, where the 49ers play their home games, is in the orange tier.

The 49ers are awaiting guidance from county health officials, who would also have to sign off on having fans in attendance, before announcing their plan, according to a statement the team posted to social media Tuesday afternoon. The team’s next home game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara is scheduled for Nov. 5.

COVID-19 in California, by the numbers

To date, California has reported 874,077 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 16,992 residents have died of the respiratory disease, according to CDPH data updated Tuesday morning.

New confirmed COVID-19 cases have been plateauing, with a rolling average that has stayed between 3,100 and 3,425 daily cases dating back to Sept. 17. That’s about one-third of the state’s peak observed in late July. Prior to the summer surge in COVID-19 activity, the rolling average from June 1 to June 15 ranged from about 2,400 to 2,800 new infections a day.

But it must be noted that the state is performing twice as many tests per day for COVID-19 now (a two-week average of just over 124,000 a day) as it was in mid-June (62,000).

Test rate positivity supports how the recent period compares favorably to early June: 2.6% of diagnostic tests over the past 14 days have returned positive, a percentage that steadily declined from late August through late September and flattened to a plateau in October. Prior to summer, when testing was more limited, statewide positive had never fallen below 4%.

Like with new cases, California’s totals for hospitalized patients (2,291 as of Tuesday) and those being treated in intensive care units (653) with lab-confirmed infections are now roughly one-third of their summer peaks, and each figure recently reached its lowest point since about the start of April.

Reported COVID-19 deaths, at just under 59 a day over the past two weeks, have slowed to a pace not seen consistently since the beginning of April.

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Latest capital region numbers: Nearly 475 dead in Sacramento County

The six-county Sacramento region has now combined for 611 reported COVID-19 deaths and over 36,000 confirmed infections.

Sacramento County as of a Tuesday morning update has recorded a total of 24,582 lab-positive cases and 474 deaths. County health officials added 390 new cases for Saturday through Monday, an average of 130 a day, followed by 229 on Tuesday — one of the largest single-day additions in weeks.

The county has now reported at least 15 deaths through the first 15 days of October, a pace that would make it the least-deadly month since June, though it will take days or possibly weeks after Halloween for the month’s fatality total to be finalized due to the time it takes to confirm official cause of death. Over 100 county residents died in September, according to the local health office.

There were 80 patients in Sacramento County hospitals with confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 23 in ICUs, according to Tuesday’s state data update. The county has 100 available ICU beds.

Sacramento is in the red tier. For this week’s state assessment, which examined numbers from Oct. 4-10, the county had 4.4 new daily cases per 100,000 residents (red tier) and 2.5% test positivity (orange).

Yolo County, which joined Sacramento in the red tier in late September, has reported 3,086 total infections and 56 deaths from COVID-19. Yolo added 13 new cases Tuesday, 11 Monday and 17 Sunday.

Yolo officials recently reported an outbreak at Alderson Convalescent Hospital, the second cluster of COVID-19 cases at the skilled nursing facility since July. To date, at least 43 residents of the 140-bed facility and 15 staff members have tested positive. Three residents died in the July outbreak. The most recent confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported Monday.

Yolo as a whole has six patients in hospitals with COVID-19, including three in intensive care.

Yolo in this week’s state assessment had 5.3 new daily cases per 100,000 (red) and 2.6% test positivity (orange) for the most recent state assessment period.

Placer County surpassed 4,000 all-time infections with a Tuesday morning data update and also reported three additional deaths, for all-time totals of 4,012 cases and 55 fatalities. The addition of 34 cases marked one of the biggest single-day increases for the county since August.

Placer says on its hospitalization dashboard that it has 12 patients in hospital beds specifically being treated for COVID-19, including two in ICUs.

Placer is in the orange tier. It reported 3.7 new daily cases per 100,000 and a test positivity of 3.3% in this week’s data table from the state, both remaining in the orange tier.

El Dorado County is one of a small number of counties to have reported deaths below double-digits, with just four since the start of the pandemic. Health officials have reported a total of 1,302 infections after reporting 12 new cases Tuesday.

No one is hospitalized with the virus in El Dorado, according to state data updated Tuesday.

El Dorado’s new daily cases per 100,000 were 2.1, in the orange tier but just 0.1 shy of the yellow tier, and test positivity was well within the yellow criteria at 1.2%.

Sutter County health officials have reported a total of 1,821 people positive for coronavirus and 12 dead. Sutter reported two new cases Tuesday afternoon. Four people were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of that time, including one in the ICU.

Sutter is in the red tier. It reported 2.7 new daily cases per 100,000 (orange) and 1.9% test positivity (yellow) for the week of Oct. 4-10.

Yuba County officials have reported a total of 1,280 infections and 10 dead. Yuba reported two new cases Tuesday afternoon and five new cases Monday. One patient was hospitalized with none in the ICU Tuesday in Yuba.

Yuba is also in the red tier. For the recent state assessment period, Yuba County had 6.3 new daily cases per 100,000 (red) and 3.3% test positivity (orange).

The Bee’s Rosalio Ahumada, Chris Biderman and Andrew Sheeler contributed to this story. Listen to our daily briefing:

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