Hard-hit California marks 40,000 deaths
Hospitalizations fall; pace of fatalities soars
LOS ANGELES — California on Saturday reached the grim milestone of 40,000 covid-19 deaths, as the number of cases and hospitalizations declined sharply and deaths in the state surged at a record pace.
Additionally, Maryland reported its first case of the new variant of the coronavirus first found in South Africa, becoming the second state to confirm the arrival of the highly transmissible mutation.
California’s death toll has climbed rapidly since the worst surge of the pandemic started in mid-October. New cases and hospitalizations surged to record highs but have declined rapidly in the past two weeks. Deaths remain staggeringly high, however, with more than 3,800 in the past week.
It took six months for California to record its first 10,000 deaths, then four months to double to 20,000.
In just five more weeks the state reached 30,000. It then took only 20 days to get to 40,000.
Now only New York has more deaths — fatalities there have topped 43,000 — with California on track to eclipse that, too.
For much of the year, California was a model for how to control the virus. It issued the first statewide shutdown last March and has imposed an ever-changing number of restrictions that have frustrated business owners but that state officials insist have saved lives.
Cases fell after a peak in July, then started climbing again in the fall. Gov. Gavin Newsom activated what he called the “emergency brake” on Nov. 16 to halt reopening the state’s economy, keeping most public schools closed, barring indoor church services and limiting the number of customers in stores.
But with Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s looming, public-health officials warned people not to gather with those outside their homes.
Still, hospitalizations skyrocketed and on Dec. 3, Newsom issued a stay-home order that divided the state into five regions and required more businesses to close or reduce capacity if their region’s intensive-care units fell to 15% capacity. Four regions with 98% of the state’s population reached that level.
Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley regions were hardest hit, with some hospitals treating patients in hallways, cafeterias and gift shops. In Los Angeles, ambulances waited for hours to drop off patients.
With improving conditions, all regions now are out from under the order, though many tight restrictions remain.
Hospice nurse Antonio Espinoza was among the latest to succumb in what has become California’s deadliest surge. Espinoza’s wife, Nancy, watched through a glass window in the hospital as her husband took his last breaths, then was allowed in the room to be with him. She’s now figuring out what to do next and how she’ll raise their 3-year-old son alone.
“I just had so much faith,” said Nancy Espinoza, who by cruel coincidence lives in a city named Corona. “Never in my mind would it have crossed me that it would be this serious, even though we hear about it all the time.”
Cases and deaths in California have disproportionately hit minority-group and poorer communities, where families live in more crowded housing and among those without health insurance. Many also work in jobs with a higher risk of exposure.
The death rate for Hispanics is 20% higher than the statewide average, according to figures from the Department of Public Health. Deaths of Black people are 12% higher. Case rates are 39% higher in communities where the median income is less than $40,000.
Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous with a quarter of the state’s nearly 40 million residents, has more than 40% of California’s virus deaths. In November, the daily number of deaths of Hispanics was 3.5 per 100,000 residents. It’s now 40 deaths per 100,000, an increase of more than 1,100%.
As of Saturday, the number covid-19 deaths reported in the U.S. was over 439,000, with the total cases exceeding 26 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
VARIANT IN MARYLAND
Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan confirmed Saturday that a case of the the new virus variant first discovered in South Africa has emerged in a resident of the state.
The case of the new variant, which was identified by state health officials in consultation with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, involves an adult in the Baltimore area who has not traveled outside the country, “making community transmission likely,” the governor’s statement read. Officials are working to quickly identify potential contacts and ensure they are quarantined and tested, Hogan said.
“State health officials are closely monitoring the B.1.351 variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the state,” Hogan said. “We strongly encourage Marylanders to practice extra caution to limit the additional risk of transmission associated with this variant. Please continue to practice standard public health and safety measures, including mask wearing, regular hand washing, and physical distancing.”
The B.1.351 variant, originally discovered in South Africa and later in two dozen countries, was first identified in the United States on Thursday, in two cases in South Carolina. Maryland is the second state to report a confirmed case of the variant.
The mutation appears to spread more easily than other variants, but there is no evidence that it is more lethal or causes more severe illness.
Scott Gottlieb, former director of the Food and Drug Administration, has suggested that this variant might be more resistant to antibody therapies. While additional research is still required, vaccines likely will still be effective against the mutation, top infectious-diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said earlier this month. The diagnostic coronavirus tests currently available are expected to be able to detect the B.1.351 variant, Hogan’s statement said.
This is the second mutation of the coronavirus to be identified in Maryland. The Maryland Department of Health announced that it identified the mutation first found in the United Kingdom on Jan. 12. Health officials in the state have since identified seven cases of that variant, known as B.1.1.7.
More than 430 cases of the three variants, including the one initially found in Brazil, have been identified in at least 31 states, according to federal data, an alarming spread that Fauci described as a “wake-up call.”
“It is an incentive to do what we’ve been saying all along: to vaccinate as many people as we can, as quickly as we possibly can,” Fauci said Friday.
POST-VACCINE INFECTIONS
Separately, two members of Congress from Massachusetts tested positive for the coronavirus last week, one after receiving both doses of the vaccine, a reminder that people can still be vulnerable to infection after being vaccinated, particularly in the two weeks after receiving the second dose.
Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., tested positive for the virus on Friday afternoon after a staff member in his Boston office tested positive earlier last week, his spokeswoman Molly Rose Tarpey said.
Lynch received a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine before the inauguration of President Joe Biden on Jan. 20, but his office declined to specify the date it was administered. Lynch had tested negative for the virus before attending the inaugural ceremonies, Tarpey said.
“While Mr. Lynch remains asymptomatic and feels fine, he will self-quarantine and will vote by proxy in Congress during the coming week,” she said.
Tarpey added that Lynch “has followed CDC guidelines and continues to do so since he received the vaccine.”
Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., announced Thursday that she had tested positive for the virus and was asymptomatic. Trahan, whose staff members have been working remotely, also said she planned to vote by proxy this week.
“I encourage everyone to continue taking this virus seriously and to follow the science and data-driven guidance to wear a mask, maintain a safe social distance from others, avoid large gatherings and stay home whenever possible,” Trahan said.
Trahan received her first shot of one of the vaccines last week, spokeswoman Francis Grubar told The Washington Post.
Occasional cases of people testing positive after receiving one or both doses are not unexpected, medical experts say. Clinical trial data published by Pfizer shows that the vaccine is about 52% effective at preventing illness after the first shot, compared with 95% effectiveness seven days after the second dose.
A small number of patients can still become mildly sick even after they are fully vaccinated. But only one of the roughly 20,000 people who received both doses in the clinical trial developed severe covid-19, suggesting the vaccine is powerful protection against the most dangerous cases of the disease.
Members of Congress began getting vaccinated as early as Dec. 18, but Lynch at the time said he was “waiting for the vaccine to be first offered to health care personnel, first responders and vulnerable seniors” in his district, the Boston Herald reported. It is unclear when Lynch ultimately received his first dose of the vaccine; he would have received the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine about three to four weeks after the first.
Public-health experts have emphasized that it usually takes one week after the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to reach 95% efficacy and two weeks after the second dose of the Moderna vaccine to reach 94% efficacy.
At least 23.2 million people in the United States have received one or both doses of the vaccine. The CDC recommends that vaccinated people continue to wear masks, socially distance, avoid poorly ventilated spaces and wash their hands frequently.