Coronavirus updates: California’s winter COVID surge passes peak, but deaths set record

Winter surges of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations appear to have passed their peaks in California and the U.S. as a whole, data show.

But deaths are still mounting at record pace, with the state on Friday confirming 764 new fatalities. That’s the most in any day of the health crisis, surpassing the previous mark of 708 set Jan. 8.

The record high pushed the death rate to an average of 511 a day over the past two weeks, a tenfold increase from 50 at the start of November.

To date, more than 3.06 million Californians have tested positive for COVID-19 and at least 35,768 have died, according to CDPH.

In the Golden State, the two-week test positivity rate has nosedived from 14% to 10.5% in the past 13 days; the latter is the lowest it has been since Dec. 13. The number of patients hospitalized with confirmed cases has fallen from a peak of about 22,000 two weeks ago to just below 19,000 in Friday’s update from the California Department of Public Health.

The COVID-19 patient total in intensive care units, while dropping more slowly, has also been consistently declining for close to two weeks.

Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly explained earlier this week that this slower ICU decline is to be expected, because those critically ill with COVID-19 can be hospitalized for extended periods.

Though declining, the state’s case and hospital rates are still higher than any point in the pandemic before mid-December. This means COVID-19 deaths will continue to pour in at very high rates for at least several more weeks.

Health officials are cautious in their optimism as transmission rates decline.

For one, labs in various parts of the U.S. including California have detected multiple COVID-19 variants that could have troubling implications — some that are much more infectious, and others against which vaccines appear to be less effective.

Health and government leaders are also careful not to lead the public to let their guard down. Even with vaccines being deployed, they urge that people continue to wear masks, avoid gatherings and maintain social distancing protocols.

Vaccine rollout ‘dismal failure,’ Biden says. California can attest

The most critical component of the pandemic response right now is the distribution and administration of vaccine.

Pfizer and Moderna received emergency use authorizations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for their two-dose regimens in mid-December.

It has been a slog since then. Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s national vaccination campaign, stated a goal of administering 20 million doses before the end of December.

Three weeks into 2021, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday reported only 17.5 million shots have been given nationwide.

Speaking Thursday at the White House, President Joe Biden called the vaccine rollout to this point a “dismal failure,” saying the U.S. needs a “wartime” effort to bolster distribution. Biden, focusing his first full day in office on COVID-19 response, signed an executive order to use the Defense Production Act to aid the vaccine supply chain.

By all available measures, California’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been a mess.

The state through Thursday had administered only 4,135 doses per 100,000 residents, according to the CDC. That ranks sixth-worst among the 50 states, even though California’s allocation ranks in the middle of the pack.

The CDC reports California has administered only about 1.6 million of the nearly 4.4 million shots it has been distributed. That’s 37%, which as of Thursday ranked third-worst among all states.

Delays in data reporting are likely at least partially to blame for that low percentage, local and state health officials say. There has been confusion at almost every step of California’s vaccine rollout — everything from the phases for priority to the data systems counties and hospitals use to track how many doses are actually being administered.

Short supply also remains a major issue. Dr. Erica Pan, California’s state epidemiologist, said during a Wednesday vaccine committee meeting that at the current pace of receiving about 400,000 to 500,000 doses a week, it would take until June to inoculate all Californians 65 and older.

Pan expressed doubt that the allocations would increase significantly until a third vaccine is cleared for use, which isn’t expected until at least March.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, in another White House briefing Thursday stressed the importance of speeding up the vaccination timeline.

Fauci said the emergence of variants that are more resistant to vaccines is all the more reason to vaccinate more quickly, as counterintuitive as that may seem.

“Viruses don’t mutate unless they replicate,” he said. Preventing another major surge of COVID-19 would decrease the likelihood of new, troublesome variants surfacing.

Hundreds of Placer County high school students quarantining

Five students and one staff member at Oakmont High School in Roseville tested positive last week for the virus, which forced 211 students and eight employees into two weeks of quarantine.

The week before, several other students tested positive, forcing another 100 into quarantine.

Roseville Joint Union High School district schools returned to five-day-a-week, on-campus learning in early January — the height of California’s surge in COVID-19 activity.

Within weeks, positive test results and exposure to known cases forced Roseville High School to return to distance learning for at least seven school days, in addition to Oakmont’s mass quarantines.

Latest Sacramento-area numbers

The six counties that make up the bulk of the 13-county Greater Sacramento region — Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties — have reported more than 130,000 combined positive cases and at least 1,645 virus deaths as of Friday.

Sacramento County has confirmed 82,066 cases since the onset of the pandemic, and at least 1,157 of those residents have died of COVID-19.

The county reported 429 new cases and increased the death toll by 12 on Friday. Health officials added 454 new cases and 505 on Thursday, with 12 new deaths added each day.

By date of death occurrence, December marked by far Sacramento County’s deadliest month of the pandemic. County health officials have confirmed 369 deaths for the month — an average of nearly 12 a day. The death toll more than doubled that of August, the previous worst month, in which 181 county residents died of the virus.

Local health officials now say at least 107 county residents died of the virus between Jan. 1 and Jan. 18. That figure is still very preliminary as death confirmations can take weeks to be made official. All 12 deaths reported Friday were from this month. At least 72 died during the first week of 2021.

Virus hospitalizations in Sacramento County have trended on a decline while the ICU patient total remains elevated. The overall patient total fell from 436 on Thursday to 419 Friday. The ICU total, which hit a record-high at 130 on Tuesday, dropped from 126 Thursday to 122 Friday, but the number of available ICU beds also dropped from 64 to 57.

Placer County health officials have confirmed a total of 17,584 infections and 186 deaths, reporting 94 new cases and two deaths Thursday following 110 cases and four deaths Wednesday.

State data on Thursday showed 126 hospitalized in Placer, down from 138 on Wednesday, with the ICU total going from 26 to 27. CDPH data indicates there are now eight ICU beds available.

Placer’s own local dashboard showed the hospitalized total lower, at 108 patients, in a Thursday update.

Yolo County has reported a total of 10,772 cases and 138 deaths, reporting 167 new cases and no new fatalities Thursday following 298 new cases and seven deaths reported Wednesday.

State data showed Yolo with 32 virus patients in hospital beds on Friday, up from 30 on Thursday, with the ICU patient total going from 12 to 11. One ICU bed remains available in the county, up from zero on Thursday, CDPH says.

El Dorado County has reported 7,949 positive test results and 53 deaths. The county added 63 cases and four deaths Thursday following 60 cases and five deaths reported Wednesday.

Following just four deaths from March through mid-November, at least 49 El Dorado residents died of COVID-19 between Nov. 25 and Jan. 8, county officials report.

State health officials reported a record-high 46 virus patients in El Dorado on Jan. 12, but the figure has fallen significantly, down to 22 on both Wednesday and Thursday before increasingly slightly to 24 on Friday. The ICU total fell from nine on Tuesday to four Wednesday, but rebounded to eight by Friday. The available ICU bed total dropped from eight to three in the past day, according to CDPH.

In Sutter County, at least 7,855 people have contracted the virus and 82 have died. Sutter on Thursday reported only 24 new cases, one of the lowest totals in weeks, but increased its death toll by three. The county on Wednesday reported 75 new cases and one new fatality.

Sutter County reports 30 residents hospitalized with COVID-19 including seven in intensive care, down from 36 and nine a day earlier.

Neighboring Yuba County has reported 5,013 infections and 29 dead, adding 18 cases and two fatalities Thursday following 47 cases and no deaths Wednesday.

Yuba said Thursday it had 24 residents hospitalized with the virus with four in the ICU, down from 28 and six the previous day.

Not all patients are hospitalized in-county, but the only hospital serving the Yuba-Sutter bicounty region — Adventist-Rideout in Marysville — had 42 hospitalized virus patients as of Friday, down from 44 on Thursday and 50 on Wednesday, and with the ICU total dropping from 16 to 13. The hospital has two available ICU beds, same as Thursday.

The Bee’s Sawsan Morrar, Jeong Park, Jason Pohl and Phillip Reese contributed to this story.