Coronavirus updates: Dozens infected in 2 Sacramento-area nursing facility outbreaks

The Sacramento area may currently have the two largest active COVID-19 outbreaks among California’s more than 1,200 licensed skilled nursing facilities, according to a state database.

Alderson Convalescent Hospital in Woodland, the site of an earlier outbreak that infected 17 residents in the summer, has had at least 54 more test positive this month. The facility has 140 beds.

Yolo County officials first announced on Oct. 14 that Alderson’s second COVID-19 outbreak had infected 14 residents and four employees. The resident case count has more than tripled in less than two weeks. Alderson in a Friday update to its website listed the active case total at 54, plus another seven active cases among staff.

A data dashboard from the California Department of Public Health for cases at skilled nursing facilities affirms 54 resident cases in Alderson’s current outbreak, reporting that 48 of them were still considered active as of Sunday.

Alderson’s earlier outbreak, from the beginning of July, infected 10 staff members and 17 residents, three of whom died.

As of Sunday, one additional resident death has been reported by the county from the current outbreak.

In Sacramento County, Asbury Park Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Arden Arcade has 46 active resident coronavirus cases, according to the CDPH dashboard. The facility has a licensed capacity of 139. That means, similar to Alderson’s outbreak, about one-third of all residents at Asbury Park have tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of October.

The state database also says 32 employees at Asbury Park have contracted the disease since the start of the pandemic. No resident or staff deaths have been reported at Asbury Park through Sunday.

Alderson and Asbury Park were No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, for reported active cases in residents among California’s 1,223 licensed skilled nursing facilities, according to CDPH. About 6.5% of the facilities did not report data Sunday, but a vast majority of those that did showed either 0 or “<11” active cases (precise numbers are masked for facilities with fewer than 11 cases for privacy reasons). Only about two dozen are shown as having 11 or more.

Throughout the pandemic, it has been clear that the respiratory disease known as COVID-19 is most dangerous to older populations, a fact reflected by devastating and deadly outbreaks at facilities throughout the United States that cater to them.

Skilled nursing facilities account for only about 5% of California’s cases, but have totaled more than 4,600 resident deaths and 150 employee deaths to date, combining for nearly 28% of the state’s 17,345 COVID-19 fatalities, according to CDPH. Another 1,123 residents and staff at assisted-living facilities, which also cater to older adults but offer a lower level of medical care than skilled nursing homes, have died from the disease, according to the state Department of Social Services.

Are California COVID-19 cases plateauing? Or on the rise again?

Statewide coronavirus activity has continued at a mostly steady pace since mid-September in California, but there have been a few early signs of a possible uptick as October comes to a close.

With recent totals elevated due to Los Angeles County working through a technology-related backlog, CDPH reported more than 5,000 new cases each day Friday through Sunday before returning to just below 3,000 Monday. Those additions have pushed the state’s two-week rolling average to about 3,640 new cases per day. Over the weekend, the rate surpassed 3,500 for the first time since Sept. 16.

Short-term data issues are one reason state health officials pay attention to 14-day rolling averages rather than shorter time frames. The recent announcement suggests statewide infection totals have been undercounted since whenever the Los Angeles County problem began. If the problem started less than two weeks ago, as the CDPH note suggests is the case, the statewide average of 3,675 new daily cases reported Sunday should be closer to accurate than last Thursday’s figure of 3,280 for the previous two weeks.

CDPH on Friday noted an estimated 2,000 backlogged Los Angeles cases in the daily update to state data, with a few more days of backlog expected after that. Densely populated Los Angeles County makes up about one-quarter of California’s roughly 40 million residents and has accounted for about one-third of the state’s lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases during the pandemic — about 297,000 of California’s 901,000.

California’s test positivity — the percentage of diagnostic tests returning positive for COVID-19 — has also risen slightly. Health experts look to test positivity as a snapshot that can reflect true spread of COVID-19 while accounting for differences in testing capacity.

The rolling two-week average increased half a point in six days, from 2.5% on Oct. 18 to a flat 3% by Saturday, with the latter rate marking the state’s highest in exactly a month. It stayed at 3% Sunday, then dropped back to 2.8% Monday. The rolling one-week average is now 3.2%.

Unlike the raw case total, test positivity rate should not be impacted by the recent backlog issue. Los Angeles County’s public health website shows that three recent days’ case totals including backlogged results had about the same daily positivity rate as the three preceding days; all were around 3.5%.

For California, positivity declined very consistently throughout September, and then held on a stable plateau for more than half of October. From Aug. 18 to Oct. 18, the state’s 14-day rolling average either decreased or held steady almost every single day, while never increasing by more than 0.1% over any period within those two months.

Six days remains a small sample size within the nearly eight-month pandemic, and California’s coronavirus situation still continues to compare favorably to most states. The U.S. as a whole is within a record-breaking surge in new cases, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The increase is anchored largely by infections in Midwest and Great Plains states.

But in a state as large, populous and diverse as California, coronavirus activity still varies fairly widely from region to region, county to county. In the economic reopening framework introduced by Gov. Gavin Newsom and state officials to start September, California’s 58 counties are classified into four risk tiers primarily by the two metrics discussed above — total new daily cases (per 100,000 residents), and test rate positivity as a one-week average.

For the most recent tier assessment, which looked at data from Oct. 4 to Oct. 10, some counties had positive rates below 1%. In eight of the hardest hit counties, including Fresno and Imperial, it’s still above 5%, which is the cutoff the World Health Organization recommends communities should reach before starting to reopen.

If the rise from 2.5% to 3%, or to 2.8%, is the first step in a larger spike or surge in COVID-19 activity, the next days and weeks of data should shed more light on which parts of the state may be driving that increase, and whether the problem is widespread or more centralized.

Hospitalization and intensive care unit rates have not shown an increase: They’re holding at between 2,200 and 2,300 patients in hospitals, and between 600 and 650 in ICUs, as of Monday morning’s update. The figures have stayed in those ranges, which are each roughly one-third of their summer peaks, for almost all of October.

Latest Sacramento-area numbers: Region passes 630 deaths

The six-county Sacramento region has now combined for 633 reported COVID-19 deaths and more than 37,000 confirmed infections over the course of the pandemic.

Sacramento County has recorded a total of 25,601 lab-positive cases and 491 deaths. Health officials added a three-day total of 337 new cases for Saturday through Monday.

The county has now reported at least 29 deaths from Oct. 1 through Oct. 22. Continued death confirmations for September have pushed that month’s death toll to 116, according to the local health office. Nearly 180 county residents died in August.

Hospitalizations in Sacramento dropped slightly, from 91 on Sunday to 88 Monday, according to a state data update. ICU patients are down to 14, which is tied with a handful of days as the least since June 18.

Sacramento is in the red tier. In last Tuesday’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 3,207 total infections and 59 deaths from COVID-19. Yolo reported two new deaths Wednesday afternoon and one on Sunday. The county added 15 new cases Monday and 25 on Sunday.

Yolo has seven patients in hospitals with COVID-19 as of Monday, down from nine Sunday, with three now in intensive care, state data show.

Yolo in last 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 last Tuesday and reported five deaths last week for an all-time total of 57 fatalities. The county has reported 4,178 cases since the start of the pandemic, with a three-day addition of 90 for the weekend plus Monday.

Placer says on its hospitalization dashboard that it has 13 patients in hospital beds specifically being treated for COVID-19, including three in ICUs. Those totals are up slightly, from 11 hospitalized and two in ICUs, compared to Friday.

Placer is in the orange tier. It reported 3.7 new daily cases per 100,000 and a test positivity of 2.1% in last week’s data table from the state, both remaining in the orange tier.

El Dorado County is one of a small number of counties with a single-digit death toll, with just four dead since the start of the pandemic. Health officials have reported a total of 1,351 infections, most recently adding 36 cases between Saturday and Monday.

El Dorado has one patient hospitalized and in an ICU for the first time since Oct. 13, according to state data updated Monday.

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%, in last week’s state assessment.

Sutter County health officials have reported a total of 1,865 people positive for coronavirus and 12 dead, with data last updated Monday. Three people were hospitalized with COVID-19, but none of them were in the ICU, according to county health officials.

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 1,323 infections and 10 deaths. Three patients are hospitalized, but not in an ICU.

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

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US hits 225,000 deaths; over 43 million infected worldwide

The global infection total for COVID-19 has surpassed 43 million and the death toll is past 1,150,000, with nearly 8.7 million of the confirmed cases and more than 225,000 deaths coming from the United States, according to Johns Hopkins data.

Friday set a daily record for worldwide coronavirus cases, with over 506,000 reported.

After the U.S. in terms of death toll are Brazil at 157,000, India at 119,000 and Mexico at nearly 89,000. The United Kingdom is approaching 45,000 fatalities, Italy’s toll has risen to about 37,500, and Spain and France are each just over 35,000 as another wave of infections and deaths sweeps through Europe.

Over 34,000 have died in Peru, followed by nearly 33,000 in Iran, 30,000 in Colombia, nearly 29,000 in Argentina and over 26,000 in Russia. South Africa is at 19,000 deaths.

By infections, India is second in the world with 7.9 million confirmed, and Brazil is next at almost 5.4 million. Russia recently surpassed 1.5 million. France, Argentina, Spain and Colombia have all surpassed 1 million. Mexico, Peru and the United Kingdom are all nearing 900,000.

The Bee’s Sophia Bollag and Noel Harris contributed to this story. Listen to our daily briefing:

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