Santa Clara County Reports 548 New Coronavirus Cases, 37 Deaths
SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA — The Santa Clara County Public Health Department reported 548 additional coronavirus cases Wednesday.
The latest report brings the countywide case count to 99,702.
The county reported 37 additional coronavirus-related fatalities Wednesday, bringing its COVID-19 death toll to 1,314.
There were 502 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the county as of Wednesday of which 123 were being treated in intensive care units.
Elsewhere around the Bay Area and beyond, BART will receive more than $100 million in federal coronavirus relief funding following the Metropolitan Transportation Commission's first allocation of funding for transit on Wednesday.
The transit agency will receive $103.7 million, $55 million of which will be used to close BART's budget deficit for the 2020-2021 fiscal year, which ends on June 30.
The rest of the funding will be used to cover part of BART's expected deficit for the following fiscal year, which the agency's budget officials have pegged at $254 million before accounting for federal relief.
"These funds provide short-term relief, preventing lay-offs and providing funds to keep our current service levels for our current ridership which is heavily transit dependent," BART General Manager Bob Powers said in a statement.
The Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 included $14 billion for the country's transit agencies, which have struggled as the pandemic gutted ridership revenue.
According to the MTC, the Bay Area should receive roughly $975 million in total from the relief bill. The commission will then disperse that funding to individual transit agencies.
State officials announced Tuesday that Government Operations Agency Secretary Yolanda Richardson will take over handling the state's COVID-19 vaccine distribution, with the intent of streamlining the vaccination process and expanding where and when people can get vaccinated.
The state plans to work with local public health officials and third-party health care entities to create a "vaccine administration network," according to Richardson, who emphasized the state's need for more doses and medical personnel who are trained to administer them.
"We want to make sure that nothing slows down the administration of vaccines other than the pace in which vaccine arrives in the state," Richardson said Tuesday during a briefing on the pandemic.
State officials plan to partner with a third-party administrator to oversee the vaccine network and ensure health care systems across the state are moving in sync to vaccinate the state's 40 million residents.
In addition to the health care clinics, pharmacies, hospitals and mass-vaccination clinics that are currently offering shots, the state hopes to use pop-up and mobile vaccination sites to reach all corners of the state more effectively.
That third-party administrator has yet to be chosen, Richardson said, giving no timetable for when state officials may make that decision.
The vaccine network would also make use of the state's vaccine information and scheduling tool, My Turn, which Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday.
My Turn is currently being piloted in Los Angeles and San Diego counties, but is expected to launch with full functionality statewide next month.
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There have been 3,242,027 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 38,420 coronavirus-related deaths in California as of Wednesday afternoon according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The United States had 25,580,995 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 428,654 coronavirus-related fatalities as of Wednesday afternoon.
There have been 100,739,720 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2,170,237 coronavirus-related deaths reported globally as of Wednesday afternoon.
— Bay City News contributed to this report
This article originally appeared on the Los Gatos Patch
