Coronavirus updates: California reaches 300,000 total cases and 6,850 fatalities
California has recorded its two deadliest days of the coronavirus pandemic back-to-back, and on Friday the state officially surpassed 300,000 cases.
One-day increases of 140 deaths and about 7,800 new cases brought the state’s all-time infection total to more than 304,000 and its death toll to 6,851, according to its COVID-19 data dashboard updated Friday morning. The deaths were the second-most in a day, following Thursday’s 149.
A total of 6,171 patients were hospitalized statewide and 1,777 of them were in the ICU as of Friday’s update, both all-time highs. About a month ago, only about 3,100 COVID-19 patients were in the hospital and roughly 1,100 in the ICU.
Bracing for it since earlier this week, Placer, Sutter and Yuba were all officially placed on the state’s COVID-19 watch list for counties Thursday evening.
The state Department of Public Health flagged Placer County for its increasing hospitalization rate, and the Yuba-Sutter bicounty area for its recent spike in new cases.
California as a whole has surpassed 6,700 fatalities and is nearing 300,000 total lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.
Since July 1, Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered all counties on the monitoring list for longer than three consecutive days to shut down bars and a range of indoor businesses, including dine-in restaurants and movie theaters, in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 amid the current surge. Yolo County did so voluntarily last week before it landed on the list.
With the exception of El Dorado, the entire six-county greater Sacramento area is now on the state watch list. Sacramento County has been on it for weeks because of its hospitalization rate, which has rocketed from fewer than 40 patients to more than 150 in less than a month, according to state data. The state added Yolo County on Wednesday due to its recent spike in new cases and because its hospitals’ ICUs had reached capacity. Yolo has since assigned staff and has ICU beds available for COVID-19 patients, a county spokesperson said.
Exactly half of California’s counties, 29 of 58, were on the watch list as of Friday morning, accounting for more than 32 million of the state’s 40 million residents.
Yuba-Sutter area struggling with contact tracing, state says
Like nearly all other counties on the watch list, the state health department attributes Yuba and Sutter counties’ recent uptick in cases to “clusters” breaking out amid groups of friends and family members, as well as workplace transmission.
But the state list also says details regarding 40 percent of new cases in Yuba and Sutter “are unknown due to cases not able or not willing to provide source of exposure.” The two sister counties are the only ones on the watch list for which this is noted as an issue.
“Maybe it is fear combined with mistrust of government,” Yuba County spokeswoman Rachel Rosenbaum said. “It’s tough but we are working every day to try to push back on those misconceptions.”
Rosenbaum said the bicounty health office will more than double its contact tracing staff next week, adding 12 to its existing staff of eight starting Monday, with plans to add more after that.
State health officials are also advising Yuba and Sutter to launch a “strong messaging campaign” discouraging large gatherings, and to pursue “aggressive” outreach and education focused toward the region’s Latino and Punjabi communities.
Yuba and Sutter were among the first counties in California to outright defy Newsom’s phased reopening plan, allowing places like restaurants, barbershops and shopping malls to open their doors in early May prior to getting clearance from the state.
The governor rebuked the counties at the time, and state regulators including employees with the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control descended upon the area to issue warnings. That was before most of California got the green light under Newsom’s “regional variance” plan to reopen many different business sectors, with modifications required, after counties filed their own “self-attested” plans to the state.
Seven people have died among exactly 500 cases in Yuba and Sutter counties as of Thursday’s update from the bicounty health department. After going from March through the first week of June without ever reporting more than five COVID-19 cases in a day — including multiple weeklong stretches with just a handful — Yuba-Sutter has now reported 312 infections in the past two weeks, an average of 22 per day.
The two counties had 22 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Thursday. That figure has doubled since July 4.
“I am very, very concerned,” Yuba-Sutter health officer Dr. Puhong Luu said Monday. “Our doctors and nurses are stressed. Our healthcare system is being stressed. Please do your part to take care of our community, to take care of our fragile healthcare system.”
California prisons to release inmates 12 weeks early
Plagued by severe outbreaks, the state prison system is implementing another round of early releases in order to clear space due to the pandemic.
With exceptions for those on death row, those serving life sentences without the possibility of parole and those found guilty of serious rules violations since March 1 while in prison, all other inmates will have a 12-week credit applied to their time served starting Aug. 1, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Thursday. Releases will start shortly after that date.
According to COVID-19 data maintained on the CDCR website, 31 inmates have died and more than 5,700 have tested positive across the state prison system, with nearly 2,300 of those cases active as of Thursday. The worst outbreak is ongoing at San Quentin, where there are more than 1,300 active infections and seven inmates have died.
The department reported 719 active cases in CDCR employees as of Thursday, more than 200 of them at San Quentin.
Latest Sacramento-area numbers: 125 dead, 8,000 infected
The six-county region of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Yolo, Sutter and Yuba has reported a combined total of just over 8,000 infections. Ten new deaths disclosed by Sacramento County health officials since Monday, four reported deaths out of Yolo since July 3, two in Yuba since Saturday and in Sutter on Tuesday have increased the greater Sacramento area’s combined death toll to 125.
Sacramento County reports 5,152 confirmed coronavirus infections since the pandemic started, of which 79 people have died, according to the county’s data dashboard, updated Friday morning to add 220 new cases and one death.
The state on Friday reported 150 COVID-19 patients in Sacramento County hospital beds, with the total declining marginally since peaking at 157 three days earlier. Of those, 45 are in the ICU.
Sacramento estimates more than 2,700 COVID-19 cases countywide can be considered active, because not enough time has passed for them to be considered “likely recovered,” according to the dashboard.
The city of Sacramento, which accounts for about one-third of the county’s roughly 1.5 million residents, has now surpassed 3,200 cases and has had 41 residents die.
Placer County public health officials reported 28 new cases Friday morning for an all-time total of 1,021. Placer officials say 31 patients are now hospitalized and five of them are in the ICU — an addition of two to each from the day before. Eleven people have died of COVID-19 in Placer County. Roughly 310 cases are considered active.
Yolo County reported 43 new COVID-19 cases Thursday afternoon, surpassing the record-setting 37 new cases reported Wednesday. Woodland has 32 of Thursday’s cases. The county has now confirmed 802 infections from the coronavirus. Also Wednesday, two deaths were reported, increasing the countywide count to 28.
None of the four recent deaths in Yolo County dating to last Friday have been connected with senior living facilities, which have reported a total of 89 COVID-19 cases. Among those infections, 47 have been residents and 42 have been staff. The county reports it has detected the coronavirus in five of its skilled nursing or assisted living facilities, three of them in Woodland. The county’s worst outbreak by far, and the only one with fatalities, came at Stollwood Convalescent Hospital in Woodland, where 17 people died, including at least one staff member.
El Dorado County on Thursday afternoon reported 12 new COVID-19 cases, and the county has now reported a total of 292 cases. It had three people with the virus hospitalized; all of them in ICUs. The county still is reporting no confirmed COVID-19 deaths, but has seen case totals climb faster in the past several days. The county on Wednesday reported 16 new cases after adding four on Tuesday and 36 on Monday that accumulated over the weekend. Nearly half of the county’s cases have been reported in the Lake Tahoe region.
North of the four-county capital region, Sutter County reported 14 new COVID-19 cases Thursday evening for a total of 337 confirmed infections. The county reported 21 new cases Wednesday after reporting a record-setting 27 infections and one death Tuesday. The county has a total of four fatalities. Thirteen people with COVID-19 were hospitalized Thursday in Sutter County, up two from Wednesday.
Yuba County reported nine new COVID-19 cases Thursday for a total of 163 cases. The county on Wednesday reported seven new cases along with one fatality, its third of the pandemic. The county reported a death from COVID-19 on Saturday; the first of the pandemic came in early April. Nine were hospitalized in Yuba County as of Thursday, one more person than on Wednesday.
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World numbers: Death toll up to 555,000, including 133,000 in U.S.
More than 12.3 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 worldwide and over 556,000 have died as of Friday morning, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
About one-quarter of each — more than 3.1 million infections and over 133,000 deaths — have come in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins.
After the U.S., the coronavirus has hit hardest in Brazil, where 1.75 million have tested positive and more than 69,000 have died. Next by death toll are the United Kingdom at over 44,000, Italy at nearly 35,000, Mexico at over 33,000, France at just under 30,000, Spain at more than 28,000 and India at over 21,000 dead, according to Johns Hopkins.
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 CDC 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 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.
Sacramento Bee reporters Rosalio Ahumada, Tony Bizjak, Dale Kasler and Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks contributed to this report. Listen to our daily briefing:
