Coronavirus updates: California reports 200 new deaths; case totals still delayed by glitch

California’s ongoing battle with the coronavirus has been further complicated by a recently disclosed technical issue with the electronic data reporting system used statewide, which has led to an underreporting of daily new COVID-19 cases by both the state and counties’ health departments for several days.

The California Department of Public Health acknowledged the issue Tuesday morning, attaching a disclaimer to its daily data update after some counties had referenced the problem earlier in the week with disclaimers on their own websites, which say the issue is causing significant or “serious” delays in the reporting process.

State Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said during a COVID-19 update early Tuesday afternoon that the glitch is believed to be due to the high volume of data from the pandemic “testing the capacity” of the state’s data collection system for infectious diseases, known as CalREDIE.

State data on hospitalizations, which are reported through a different system, do not appear to have been impacted, nor have daily death statistics.

California officially reported 202 new deaths from the coronavirus Wednesday, the second-most of any day since the start of the pandemic. The state set a record last Friday with 219 COVID-19 fatalities reported.

Ghaly said he did not know when the daily case data problem would be fixed, but that the state was “working hard and immediately” with counties and individual labs to enter accurate data manually in the meantime. On Wednesday, the state reported just under 5,300 new lab-confirmed infections, remaining well below what had been typical in the weeks before the data problem arose.

The scale of the undercounting is not yet known, but officials in Placer and Riverside counties said this week that the problems appear to have started affecting their health departments’ data accuracy around last Friday. Those two, as well as Sacramento County, since the weekend have reported daily case increases that were just a fraction of what they’d been routinely reporting less than a week earlier. Sacramento County added its own disclaimer about underreporting to its COVID-19 dashboard Tuesday morning.

As the glitch is fixed or as manual data is entered, individual counties and the state as a whole will soon likely see either an influx of backlogged cases, significant corrections to previous days’ numbers or a combination of both. CDPH on Monday and Tuesday reported its two smallest single-day increases in lab-confirmed COVID-19 infections in nearly a month.

The data error and delays are significant because county health offices rely on case rate numbers to monitor virus trends, conduct contact tracing investigations and provide information to other local government officials and agencies to inform policy decisions. CDPH uses new case rates, among other metrics including hospitalizations, to determine whether a county is on the state watchlist.

Counties on the state’s watchlist are subject to stricter shutdown orders for businesses and places of worship, and a county must be off the watchlist for at least two weeks before it can allow K-12 campuses to reopen for in-person instruction. As of Tuesday morning the watchlist included 38 counties making up more than 97% of California by population, meaning a vast majority of public schools will begin the approaching academic year remotely, in distance-learning settings.

Ghaly said the state primarily relies on longer-term statistics in its response and decision-making processes — mainly 7-day or 14-day averages rather than single-day totals — to take into account any potential reporting delays, lag times for testing and results, and other anomalies that could skew a day’s numbers. The one-and two-week figures are affected by the recent technical issue to an extent but remain more accurate depictions of COVID-19 activity than single-day totals, Ghaly said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom during a Monday news conference pointed to modest declines in hospitalization and ICU rates statewide as a potentially promising sign that measures — business shutdowns in July, the mask mandate issued in mid-June and better social distancing in general — are working to slow the spread of COVID-19.

State data show each figure has dropped by approximately 10% in the past two weeks, and in Wednesday morning’s update, current hospitalizations fell by about 2% and ICU by more than 3% from the previous day. Ghaly said Tuesday the state believes those metrics have been accurate.

With the underreported numbers not yet accounted for, California over the course of the pandemic has reported just shy of 525,000 lab-confirmed coronavirus cases and recorded at least 9,700 deaths from the highly contagious respiratory disease known as COVID-19, CDPH reported Tuesday.

How will California’s waiver process for K-6 students work?

The state on Monday released more details on a waiver program that could allow some qualifying elementary schools in watchlist counties to allow kindergartners through sixth-graders to return to on-campus learning sooner.

In approving waivers, county health officials would set up rules for returning students to schools, including limiting the number of students together in a classroom and requiring all students in grades 3-6 to wear face coverings. The schools would have to publish their safety plans beforehand, and also consult with teacher and other labor representatives, parents and community organizations.

The Newsom administration said in a statement that the justification for the waiver system is based on science that shows “COVID-related risks in schools serving elementary-age students are lower than and different from the risks to staff and to students in schools serving older students. In particular, there appears to be lower risk of child-to-child or child-to-adult transmission in children under age 12, and the risk of infection and serious illness in elementary schoolchildren is particularly low.”

But with true infection totals among the general population unclear due to the statewide data glitch, it’s uncertain at this point whether Sacramento, Placer and Yolo counties currently qualify to offer waivers. Under the governor’s rules, those watchlist counties can only allow reopening of schools if the county has registered fewer than 200 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population over the most recent two-week period.

A chart on the CDPH website including new infection rates for watchlist counties, last updated Saturday, showed those three local counties with rates between 100 and 150 cases per 100,000 at that point.

Sacramento-area counties and school district officials said they are reviewing the governor’s waiver plans. As of Tuesday afternoon, Sacramento, Placer and Yolo county health and education officials said they had not received any formal waiver requests from public schools.

But one major private entity, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, plans to take advantage of the waiver program immediately for 17 elementary schools serving 7,000 students in Sacramento County, as well as for diocesan elementary schools in Yolo, Placer and other Northern California counties.

Lincoln Snyder, executive director of Sacramento diocesan schools, said he hopes to have children in classes soon after Labor Day weekend in September.

“The focus is on making sure social distancing and PPE protocols are in place to make sure our kids are safe,” he said.

225 dead from COVID-19 across greater Sacramento area

The six-county region of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba counties has reported 225 coronavirus deaths among more than 15,000 lab-confirmed infections.

Sacramento County, which passed 10,000 cases over the week, had tallied 10,244 cases Wednesday, an increase of 70 infections. At least 153 residents have died, with five new fatalities reported Wednesday: 95 in the capital city, 21 in unincorporated areas of the county, 10 in Citrus Heights, eight in Elk Grove, seven in Rancho Cordova, four in Galt and three in Folsom.

State health data updated Wednesday morning show 262 COVID-19 patients currently in hospital beds across Sacramento County, down from a peak of 281 last Thursday. Eighty-seven are in the ICU with the virus, with 89 ICU beds still available countywide.

Placer County has reported 1,998 cases and 19 deaths, reporting 45 new infections Wednesday and one new death each on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. There are 64 people hospitalized due to COVID-19 in the county, including 12 in the ICU.

Placer reported just 13 new infections Sunday and Monday, and 15 on Tuesday, roughly one-third the daily rate that had been typical throughout much of July, as the county attributed those low counts to the statewide data reporting issue.

Yolo County health officials have reported a total of 1,636 cases and 42 deaths, with two new cases and no new fatalities reported Wednesday.

El Dorado County has reported a total of 702 cases and just one death from COVID-19. On Wednesday, 34 new cases were reported by county health officials. There are two positive cases in county hospitals, with none being treated in an ICU. The county has 14 ICU beds available. El Dorado County, despite reporting its first death last month, remains the only county in the greater Sacramento area to have not been placed onto the state’s regional coronavirus watchlist, reflecting its relatively low number of cases.

Sutter County has reported a total of 840 cases and six deaths, adding 28 new cases in Tuesday’s update. Sixteen are hospitalized with the virus in Sutter, four of them in the ICU. County health officials reported one of the highest single-day infections last week, adding 34 more confirmed cases to the total July 28. The last record was set July 23, when 35 infections were reported.

In neighboring Yuba County, 533 people have been infected and four have died, with 24 new cases confirmed Tuesday. The county added 13 cases Saturday, 16 more Sunday and 11 Monday. Nine people in Yuba County were hospitalized as of Tuesday evening, with two in intensive care.

Coronavirus: Get news and updates emailed to you from The Sacramento Bee

World numbers: Over 700,000 dead globally; more deaths in California than Canada

The worldwide death toll for COVID-19 has recently surpassed 703,000, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University. Over 18.6 million people have tested positive for the virus.

The U.S. accounts for more one-fifth the global death toll, with 156,000 coronavirus fatalities; and over 4.8 million cases as of Wednesday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins. Next in terms of death toll are Brazil at nearly 96,000, Mexico at just under 49,000, the United Kingdom at 46,000, India at nearly 40,000, Italy at more than 35,000, France with just over 30,000, Spain at more than 28,000 and Peru at just over 20,000.

Reported at just under 527,000 cases on the Johns Hopkins map, California has confirmed more coronavirus infections than any country outside of the United States except for Brazil, India and Russia. The state’s death toll is higher than Germany (9,173 dead) and Canada (9,005) as of Tuesday evening, according to Johns Hopkins data.

What is COVID-19? How is the coronavirus spread?

Coronavirus is spread through contact between people within 6 feet of each other, especially through coughing and sneezing that expels respiratory droplets that land in the mouths or noses of people nearby.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it’s possible to catch the disease COVID-19 by touching something that has the virus on it, and then touching your own face, “but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”

Symptoms of the virus that causes COVID-19 include fever, cough and shortness of breath, which may occur two days to two weeks after exposure.

Most people develop only mild symptoms, but some people develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia, which can be fatal. The disease is especially dangerous to the elderly and others with weaker immune systems.

The Bee’s Tony Bizjak, Sophia Bollag, Maria Heeter and Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks contributed to this story. Listen to our daily briefing:

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Alexa | Google Assistant | More options