STATE’S RECOVERY OUTPACES NATION
COVID-19 cases down 87% from peak in California, compared to 74% nationwide
After weeks of consistent improvement, cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. rebounded slightly to begin this week. In California, however, the decline in cases has continued unabated.
On Tuesday, county health departments across California combined to report 6,247 new cases of COVID-19, according to data compiled by this news organization. While that doesn’t quite match the state’s recent hundred-day lows, it did lower California’s daily average to about 5,815 cases per day over the past week, its lowest point since the first week of November and 87% below its peak last month.
Nationwide the past two days, the country has reported week-over-week increases in cases, according to data collected by the New York Times. Cases have still declined about 74% from an all-time high last month and 37% in the past two weeks, to an average of about 68,000 per day, but for the first time since mid-January, the nation’s recovery from its winter wave appears to have at least briefly stalled. California recorded a 52% decline in cases over the past two weeks, outpacing the nation as well as its own previous two-week period.
Throughout the winter, California consistently topped the list of states with the worst current per-capita infection rates. As the nation’s most populous state, it already has recorded more overall cases and fatalities than any other state. Now, though, California’s per-capita rate over the past week ranks below 30 other states, at just under 15 daily cases per 100,000 residents.
The Bay Area has also cut its cases in half over the past two weeks, and on Tuesday, two of its counties were among the first to move out of the most restrictive purple reopening tier. San Mateo and Marin counties got the good news, along with Yolo, Humboldt and Shasta
counties. San Francisco, Santa Clara and Napa counties also met the threshold, which requires an adjusted case rate of 7 or lower per 100,000 residents, but must do so for another week to earn the less restrictive guidelines.
Adjusted case rates, positivity rates in Northern California counties, as of Tuesday:
• Lake: Testing positivity of 6.0% (Seven day average)
• Alameda: 9.5, 3.2%
• Contra Costa 12.5, 4.1%
• Marin: 7.4, 2.2%
• Napa: 6.8, 2.5%
• San Francisco: 5.2, 1.9%
• San Mateo: 5.6, 2.1%
• Santa Clara: 6.7, 2.4%
• Santa Cruz: 8.6, 2.9%
• Solano: 12.3, 4.4%
• Sonoma: 14.0, 4.6% Despite the improvements, coronavirus deaths in California are still coming by the hundreds each day.
Locally in Lake County as of press time Wednesday, the COVID-19 dashboard for the County of Lake reported 3,085 total cases, 129 of which it described as
active and 40 deaths overall. On Monday, there were four hospitalized patients in Lake County who were COVID-positive.
California’s cumulative death toll is closing in on 50,000, including an average of approximately 333 per day over the past week — and 275 on Tuesday, according to data compiled by this news organization. Since the start of December, its share of the national death toll, which recently crossed 500,000, has grown from 7% to 10%, though that remains lower than its some 12% of the U.S. population.
With more than 2,300 deaths over the past week, California has still recorded more than twice as many recent fatalities as any other state; only Texas and Florida reported 1,000 or more deaths in that time. On a per-capita basis, however, 30 states have lost a larger proportion of their populations over the course of the pandemic, and seven have recorded more deaths percapita over the past week.
In Los Angeles County, the overall death toll surpassed 20,000 on Tuesday, and the vast majority of the fatalities continue to come in Southern California. With 153 fatalities Tuesday, Los Angeles County reported more new deaths than the combined total of all the other counties in California. Since the onset of the pandemic, about 40% of the Californians who have died from COVID-19 lived in Los Angeles County, well above its 25% share of the state’s population.
Following LA County were Riverside County, with 31 deaths; San Diego County, with 29 deaths; San Bernardino County, with 14 deaths; and Ventura County, with 11 deaths.
In the Bay Area, Santa Clara County also added 11 to its death toll, which grew to 1,747, the largest in the region but behind five others in Southern California.