California’s COVID-19 cases still mostly flat

SACRAMENTO — As new coronavirus cases approach all-time highs at the national level, California’s COVID-19 activity has stayed mostly flat since mid-September.

Daily new cases in California, as a two-week rolling average, have stayed between 3,100 and 3,400 since Oct. 1, according to the California Department of Public Health. That rate is roughly one-third the peak observed in the summer. Similarly, the rolling average for the rate of diagnostic tests returning positive has held between 2.5% and 2.8% in that span. Those percentages are the state’s lowest since data collection began, and are also about one-third of the summer peak, which was 7.5%.

In late September, California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly warned that the state’s data projections predicted a near doubling of hospitalized coronavirus patients statewide, from 2,600 at that point to 4,800 by late October.

Fortunately, the anticipated hospital spike hasn’t happened, state data show. The number of patients in hospital beds with confirmed COVID-19 has stayed between 2,200 and 2,350, give or take a handful, since Oct. 1. The total of those in intensive care units with the respiratory disease has ranged from 600 to 680.

The state since Sept. 1 has been gradually allowing numerous types of businesses to reopen in a growing list of counties with reduced virus numbers, moving more than two dozen counties out of the most restrictive “purple” tier in a new reopening framework that began on that date.