Coronavirus updates: California reports highest daily death toll since late summer

Data show California’s coronavirus infections and hospitalizations have been holding mostly steady for more than a month, but the state Thursday reported its highest daily death toll since summer.

State health officials reported 162 new COVID-19 deaths, the most in a day since Sept. 15. The highest one-day of 219 came on July 31.

The state has averaged about 3,300 new cases and 59 reported fatalities per day over the past two weeks, both well below respective summer peaks of about 9,500 and 142. Over the course of the pandemic, at least 880,724 Californians have tested positive for COVID-19, and 17,189 have died of the respiratory disease, according to CDPH data.

Despite relatively stable new case numbers, state and local health officials continue to urge the public to take great caution, hoping to prevent the plateau from turning into a resurgence of infections and hospitalizations.

The concern includes the capital region, where county-level COVID-19 numbers have for the most part been trending downward or holding steady, but where there have also been a few troubling recent developments.

In Sacramento, two county supervisors have called for the resignation of County Executive Navdeep Gill, who presided over an indoor meeting last week where few people wore masks. One department head who attended the meeting subsequently tested positive for the virus, requiring 10 others who sat nearby to self-quarantine for two weeks, as The Bee first reported Sunday.

Sacramento County workers have also expressed worry about local COVID-19 protocols.

County officials also launched a “turn Sacramento orange” campaign at the start of October, an effort to reduce coronavirus activity enough to be promoted to the state’s less-restrictive orange tier in time for Halloween. But Sacramento won’t meet that holiday deadline. Improvements have been slight, with the earliest the county can enter the orange level Nov. 3.

In Yolo County, a Woodland skilled nursing facility is suffering its second deadly outbreak since early July, one that has seen more than three dozen residents and a half-dozen employees test positive. The outbreak appears to be a large factor in driving up the countywide infection rate. That figure has increased by about one new daily case per 100,000 residents in each of the two most recent weeks looked at by the California Department of Public Health for county tier list assessments.

One additional daily infection per 100,000 may not sound like much, but if that pace of increase were to continue for a month, Yolo County would likely land in the most-restrictive purple tier, requiring many businesses to shut back down for indoor operations.

Yolo isn’t in immediate danger of a tier demotion, but the swell in new cases, in part, led Yolo to amend its local health order this week. The county put a hard limit on attendance at social gatherings of 16 people, adding that requirement on top of recent state-issued guidance saying private gatherings must not exceed members of three different households.

Yolo County officials, in a news release, said the new restriction isn’t just a response to infection numbers starting to tick upward. It’s also a proactive measure, as colder winter weather will soon drive more people indoors, where the risk of COVID-19 spread is thought to be much higher than outdoors.

Cooler weather isn’t the only challenge on the horizon in California. Continued reopening of K-12 campuses, in-person voting on Election Day, flu season and upcoming holidays, from Halloween to Thanksgiving and beyond, all pose distinct threats that could drive up COVID-19 risks in the coming weeks.

Dozens infected, 1 dead in latest Yolo County senior home outbreak

Yolo County officials reported last week that Alderson Convalescent Hospital was experiencing its second serious coronavirus outbreak, following one from early July that infected 10 staff members and 17 residents, three of whom died. In a statement Oct. 14, the county said 14 more residents and another four employees tested positive earlier this month.

A week later, the ongoing outbreak has nearly tripled in size and become deadly.

At least 41 residents and six employees at Alderson, a 140-bed licensed skilled nursing facility in Woodland, have contracted the virus in the current outbreak, according to a Wednesday update to Yolo County’s online COVID-19 dashboard.

One additional person has died, for an all-time total of four. The county dashboard doesn’t specify whether the recent victim was a resident or employee at Alderson.

On the facility’s website, Alderson reports slightly higher infection totals than the county’s tallies, showing 44 active resident and seven active staff cases. The site doesn’t include death numbers.

Yolo County has been devastated during the pandemic by outbreaks and case clusters at skilled nursing and assisted living facilities, both of which cater to the elderly. The county says it has detected 201 COVID-19 cases across nine such facilities through Wednesday, and that long-term care homes account for 28 of the county’s 58 virus deaths. All of the deadly outbreaks have come in Woodland.

Yolo’s worst outbreak by far remains that of Stollwood Convalescent Hospital, where 32 residents and 34 employees tested positive for COVID-19 in the spring; 17 people died, including one staff member. The 48-bed facility closed permanently at the end of September.

Recent poll shows Californians skeptical of COVID-19 vaccine safety

About 40% of Californians recently surveyed said they wouldn’t get a COVID-19 immunization shot if one was available today, with 20% saying they’d “probably not” do so and the other 20% saying “definitely not.”

That’s according to a Public Policy Institute of California survey of 1,701 adult residents, released Wednesday.

Close to two-thirds of respondents said they had concerns about a coronavirus vaccine being rushed.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday that he is assembling California’s own panel of scientific experts who will independently review the safety and efficacy of any approved COVID-19 vaccine prior to wide distribution in the state. Newsom advised that the general public shouldn’t expect a vaccine before the end of 2020.

U.S. COVID-19 deaths pass 220,000. Is true total higher?

The United States accounts for more than 8.3 million of the world’s 41 million confirmed coronavirus cases and about 222,000 of its 1.1 million fatalities, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University. Each figure is the highest of any nation and represents about one-fifth of the world total.

A recent data report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that the true impact and death toll of COVID-19 may be even larger. The CDC said Tuesday that the nation’s “excess deaths” — the number of additional deaths, of any cause, compared to the typical number observed over the same period in previous years — from late January through Oct. 3 total an estimated 299,000.

Only 198,000 of the nearly 300,000 excess deaths through that date were directly attributed to COVID-19, the CDC says. The official COVID-19 death toll therefore “might underestimate the total impact of the pandemic on mortality,” the recent CDC report says, potentially by as many as 100,000 deaths.

The excess deaths are a likely mix of additional, direct pandemic deaths — meaning coronavirus fatalities that were not diagnosed or were improperly categorized — and indirect ones, such as those caused by “disruptions to health care,” the report says.

The report also found that the largest percentage increase in deaths were among Hispanic or Latino populations, as well as adults aged 25 to 44.

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Capital region by the numbers: Sacramento County hits 25,000 cases

The six-county Sacramento region has now combined for 623 reported COVID-19 deaths and over 36,000 confirmed infections.

Sacramento County has recorded a total of 25,094 lab-positive cases and 482 deaths. County health officials added 229 Tuesday — one of the largest single-day additions in weeks — followed by 146 Wednesday and 137 Thursday.

The county on Thursday surpassed 25,000 total lab-confirmed infections. Of those, about 14,000 have come in the capital city, over 4,800 in unincorporated areas, 2,500 in Elk Grove, just over 1,000 in each of Rancho Cordova and Citrus Heights, almost 650 in Galt, about 450 in Folsom and 33 in Isleton.

The county as of Wednesday estimated about 1,750 total cases could currently be considered active.

The county has now reported at least 22 deaths through the first 16 days of October. Over 100 county residents died in September and nearly 180 in August, according to the local health office.

There were 81 patients in Sacramento County hospitals with confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 19 in ICUs, according to Thursday’s state data update. The hospitalized total has held mostly steady for the past two weeks, while the ICU total has dropped from 30 as of Oct. 7. The county has 81 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 3,119 total infections and 58 deaths from COVID-19. Yolo reported two new deaths Wednesday afternoon, including one in Woodland and another in Winters. The county reported 21 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, 13 Wednesday and 13 Tuesday.

Yolo has six patients in hospitals with COVID-19 as of Thursday, 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 has reported five deaths week, including two Thursday for an all-time total of 57. The county added 29 cases Thursday for 4,052 since the start of the pandemic.

Placer says on its hospitalization dashboard that it has 11 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 2.1% 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 1,308 infections after reporting two new cases Thursday and four Wednesday.

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

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 1,837 people positive for coronavirus and 12 dead. Sutter reported seven new cases Thursday and eight Wednesday. Five people were hospitalized with COVID-19 Tuesday, 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 1,293 infections and 10 dead. Yuba reported five new cases Thursday and nine Wednesday. One patient is hospitalized but not in the ICU.

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, Tony Bizjak, Sophia Bollag, Marcos Bretón, Michael Finch II, Noel Harris and Hannah Wiley contributed to this story. Listen to our daily briefing:

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