San Mateo County Reports Incomplete Coronavirus Data

SAN MATEO COUNTY, CA — San Mateo County Health reported two additional coronavirus cases Monday. The county's website indicates data reported are incomplete.

The report brings the countywide case count to 14,458.

The county reported no additional coronavirus-related fatalities Monday, leaving its COVID-19 death toll at 170.

There were 63 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in San Mateo County as of Monday, of which 16 were being treated in intensive care units.

Elsewhere in the Bay Area and beyond, Gov. Gavin Newsom suggested Monday the state could issue a new stay-at-home order for the majority of California's counties as new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations surge across the state.

Coronavirus hospitalizations are on pace to rise by up to roughly 30 percent by Christmas Eve in much of the state, according to Newsom, as the state's health care system absorbs a surge of new cases due in part to gatherings on Thanksgiving.

Intensive care units are also on track to reach and surpass 100 percent capacity some time in December in most of the state's major population centers.

The Bay Area fares slightly better than other parts of the state in both of those metrics, with 58 percent of its hospital beds currently occupied and 62 percent projected to be occupied by Dec. 24.

Likewise, 72 percent of the Bay Area's ICU beds are currently occupied, a figure projected to rise to 91 percent by Dec. 24, putting the region on track to hit its maximum ICU capacity in early January.

Newsom said the projections did not take into account mitigating factors like a potential stay-at-home order and assumed the state's current surge would continue unabated.

"This is in the absence of making better decisions," he said Monday during a briefing on the pandemic. "If we just sit back and are bystanders at this moment and we don't subsequently improve upon our existing efforts, this is what we project might occur."

Newsom said state officials have discussed over the last week issuing a new stay-at-home order that would apply to counties in the "purple" tier of the state's pandemic reopening system.

As of Monday, 51 of the state's 58 counties, including every Bay Area county except Marin, were in the purple tier, accounting for 99.1 percent of the state's population.

A new stay-at-home order, Newsom and state Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said, would not be entirely the same as the order the state issued back in March, shutting down most businesses for several weeks.

In the months since then, Newsom and Ghaly argued, local and state health officials have learned much more about how the virus is transmitted and which activities pose the largest risk of infection.

The San Francisco 49ers will play their next two games in Arizona following the new Santa Clara County COVID-19 health order that bans the team from using its home stadium for about a month starting Monday.

Through a deal with the National Football League and the Arizona Cardinals, the 49ers will host their home games against the Buffalo Bills on Dec. 7 and Washington Football Team on Dec. 13 at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

Street sweeping and related parking enforcement will be suspended in the city of Hayward for nearly two weeks due to the coronavirus depleting the city's number of available staff, city officials said Monday.

Street sweeping and its related parking enforcement will be temporarily suspended through Dec. 10, according to the city. The suspension may also affect the city's response time to reports of graffiti and illegal dumping.

Starting Tuesday, San Mateo County will provide a permanent COVID-19 mobile testing site free of charge that will operate five days per week, Supervisor David Canepa announced.

The site will operate in the Jefferson Union High School District parking lot at 699 Serramonte Blvd. in Daly City as part of a contract with the company Curative. People as young as 5 can get a test free of charge from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, according to the county.

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There have been 1,223,096 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 19,152 coronavirus-related deaths in California as of Monday afternoon according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The United States had 13,511,194 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 259,372 coronavirus-related fatalities as of Monday afternoon.

There have been 563,118,430 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,465,492 deaths reported globally as of Monday afternoon.

— Bay City News contributed to this report

This article originally appeared on the San Mateo Patch