7 California counties promoted to red COVID tier. 9 others could improve next week

State health officials promoted seven counties out of the strict purple tier into the looser red tier of California’s framework to gradually reopen from coronavirus restrictions.

Those counties were: El Dorado, Lassen, Modoc, Napa, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo and Santa Clara.

The red tier allows for fewer restrictions on businesses and activities than the purple tier. Restaurants may reopen indoor dining areas, and several other sectors including gyms and movie theaters are permitted to reopen for indoor operations.

The seven joined 11 other counties that were already in looser tiers: Alpine, Del Norte, Humboldt, Marin, Mariposa, Plumas, San Mateo, Shasta, Sierra, Trinity and Yolo.

In addition, nine purple counties across the state notched one week of credit and will join the red tier next week if their COVID-19 rates remain beneath the necessary thresholds: Alameda, Butte, Calaveras, Imperial, Mono, Placer, Santa Cruz, Solano and Tuolumne.

The tier distinction is also key for schools.

In the K-12 school reopening deal that Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers announced Monday, public districts will lose out on 1% of their portion of a statewide $2 billion safety fund for each day beyond the end of March that they do not offer in-person instruction to kindergarten through second grade, regardless of tier level.

But in counties in the red tier or better, schools and districts must expand that to K-6 as well as at least one grade level in middle school and one grade level in high school in order to stay eligible for that funding.

Newsom hinted during a Monday news conference that “many” counties are expected to leave the purple tier and join the red in the coming weeks. Not counting this week, there will be four more tier list updates before the April 1 school funding deadline.

Counties’ tiers are assigned based on COVID-19 infection rates, which have shown vast improvements in the past few weeks. It takes two consecutive weeks of meeting the necessary criteria to join the red tier, and there are two main avenues to move from purple to red.

The more common option is to record an average of fewer than seven daily virus cases per 100,000 residents and a test positivity rate below 8% for two straight weeks.

The second option involves a health equity metric, which requires that a county’s overall test positivity and its positivity in socioeconomically disadvantaged census tracts each come in below 5% for two consecutive weeks. The latter is only applicable to counties with more than 106,000 residents.

CDPH looks at counties’ numbers on a delay to account for any data reporting issues. Numbers released later this morning will be from the survey week of Feb. 14 to Feb. 20.

Where do Sacramento area’s tier numbers stand?

Following Yolo’s promotion last week and El Dorado’s this week, Placer County is now closest to the red tier among the remaining four in the six-county Sacramento region.

Placer earned a week of credit toward the red tier by meeting all three of the metrics that are considered: overall test positivity of 2.9%, health equity positivity of 3.1% and a daily case rate of six per 100,000.

Sacramento County recorded 12 daily cases per 100,000, with an overall test positivity rate of 4.7% and a health equity positivity of 6.6%. The latter metric improved from 8.3% last week, so a similar decline next week would bring both positivity rates below 5%.

In the Yuba-Sutter bi-county area, Sutter had a test positivity of 6.8% with 13.4 daily cases per 100,000. Yuba had positivity of 7% and a case rate of 12.6 per 100,000. Neither are populous enough to qualify for the health equity metric.

Yolo County has already joined the red tier. To improve to orange, it must either record fewer than four daily cases per 100,000 residents with a test positivity below 5% for two consecutive weeks; or have an overall test positivity rate below 5% plus a health equity test positivity rate less than or equal to 2.1% for two weeks in a row.

Yolo’s metrics in this week’s update were 5.2 cases per 100,000, an overall test positivity of 1.2% and a health equity positivity of 4.5%.

El Dorado in the latest update recorded 7.6 cases per 100,000, with overall test positivity of 4.1% and health equity positivity of 4%.

California by the numbers

The Golden State is nearing its lowest point of new infections in the pandemic since testing for COVID-19 got underway last spring.

Just 2.6% of tests statewide have came back positive for COVID-19 in the two weeks leading up to Tuesday, CDPH said, for an average of fewer than 5,000 cases a day. The state’s all-time low for positivity is 2.5%, reached in mid-October.

The number of hospitalized coronavirus patients has declined from nearly 22,000 to about 4,800 as of Tuesday’s update, with the total in intensive care units dropping from 4,900 to below 1,400.

The state continues to record hundreds of new deaths per day, as fatalities are the last indicator to fall from the intense winter surge. More than 52,000 Californians have died of COVID-19 to date, according to CDPH.

The state’s pace of vaccination is improving, reaching the milestone of more than 9.3 million doses administered as of a Tuesday update. California will have close to 1.7 million vaccine doses delivered to providers this week, including at least 320,000 of Johnson & Johnson’s newly authorized single-shot vaccine.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports about 9% of California’s adult population is fully vaccinated and about 21% are at least partially vaccinated.

Cumulative Sacramento-area numbers

The six-county Sacramento region has reported close to 150,000 total positive cases and at least 2,139 virus deaths over the course of the pandemic.

Sacramento County has reported 93,678 cases and 1,488 resident deaths from COVID-19. The county on Monday added 368 new cases and 12 deaths for a three-day reporting window including the weekend, followed by 150 new cases and four deaths Tuesday.

By date of death occurrence, December and January were by far Sacramento County’s two deadliest months of the pandemic. Health officials have confirmed 384 deaths for December, 315 for January and 103 for Feb. 1 through Feb. 23.

Prior to December, the county’s deadliest month of the pandemic was August, at 181 virus deaths.

The county had 150 patients hospitalized with the virus as of Tuesday, down from 157 on Monday, with the ICU total dipping from 47 to 46.

Placer County health officials have confirmed a total of 19,861 infections and 232 deaths. Placer on Monday added 98 cases and no deaths for the three-day period including the weekend, following 50 new cases and one death added Friday.

State data showed 55 virus patients in Placer hospitals including 15 in ICUs as of Tuesday, down from 61 and 16, respectively, on Monday.

Yolo County has reported a total of 12,712 cases and 185 deaths. The county added 56 new cases in a Monday update including the weekend, following 19 new cases reported Friday.

County officials recently noted that deaths are confirmed in groups, meaning there may be no deaths noted for several days and then many confirmed in a day or two. The county most recently reported four fatalities on Feb. 23.

State data show Yolo with 14 virus patients hospitalized as of Tuesday, down from 16 Monday, with the ICU total holding at six.

El Dorado County has reported 9,060 positive test results and 100 deaths. Local health officials added 40 cases and no deaths for the weekend plus Monday.

El Dorado has reported the vast majority of its virus deaths in a little more than the past three months: 96 county residents have died of COVID-19 since Nov. 25, compared to four from last March through mid-November.

State data on Tuesday showed El Dorado with three patients hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID-19, down from four on Monday, but with the ICU total increasing from one to two.

In Sutter County, at least 8,880 people have contracted the virus and 97 have died. Officials reported 14 new cases and no deaths Monday.

Yuba County, which shares a health office with Sutter, has reported 5,773 infections and 37 dead, adding 10 cases and no deaths Monday.

The lone hospital serving the Yuba-Sutter bicounty region — Adventist-Rideout in Marysville — had 19 hospitalized virus patients as of Tuesday, up slightly from 18 on Monday, with the ICU total holding at five.

The Bee’s Tony Bizjak, Sophia Bollag and Hannah Wiley contributed to this story.