A north- south COVID split
As stay- at- home order is lifted in Sacramento region, L. A.- area hospitals prepare for surge to worsen.
Crisis eases in parts of Northern California, while L. A.- area surge continues.
SAN FRANCISCO — As parts of Northern California began to see the f irst guarded signs of progress Tuesday in the battle against the winter coronavirus surge, communities in hard- hit Southern California were bracing for more cases to f lood hospitals already overwhelmed as COVID- 19 continues to rise.
The post- Christmas surge is still slamming Los Angeles and surrounding counties. The spread is increasing again as people infected during holiday events test positive. Officials expect that will lead to more hospitalizations, but how many remains a critical question with medical infrastructure already at the breaking point.
Any new surge in infections, officials warn, will trigger a resulting wave of patients requiring professional care — creating what could be an unsustainable strain on already overtaxed hospitals and intensive care units.
On Tuesday, a tally of local health jurisdictions found 318 deaths reported in L. A. County, tying the record single- day high for deaths, recorded on Friday.
Daily coronavirus cases are also increasing. On
Tuesday, 14,134 new coronavirus cases were recorded in L. A. County. That pushed the county’s average to more than 15,000 cases a day over the past week, one of the worst daily averages it has recorded to date and a warning sign of a future surge of hospitalizations.
Officials had forecast that averaging 15,000 cases a day would likely be a precursor to an even worse surge in hospitalizations. So far, that has not materialized, but off icials expect that could soon change.
But to the north, the news was not quite as dire.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday that the state was lifting its stay- athome order for Greater Sacramento effective immediately, making the region the f irst to emerge from the restrictions on businesses and activities imposed in hopes of blunting the coronavirus surge.
The counties included in the region — Alpine, Amador, Butte, Colusa, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, Sierra, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba — will return to the state’s colorcoded tier framework that determines how widely commercial and public spaces can reopen.
“California remains in its most intense surge to date,” Newsom said in a brief video message announcing the move. “But there are some good things to report. We’re starting to see some stabilization both in ICUs [ and] in our positivity rate. We’re also starting to see the rate of growth for hospitalizations beginning to decline.”
As of Tuesday, Greater Sacramento had more than 9% of its ICU beds available and was projected to have an available capacity of at least 15% four weeks from now — the criteria to exit the stayat- home order. The move will permit counties to allow for the reopening of hair salons and barbershops in a limited capacity and allow other businesses, including restaurants, to resume some outdoor operations.
San Francisco also had encouraging data. Dr. Grant Colfax, director of public health, said that while coronavirus cases rose by 70% after Thanksgiving, they rose only by 28% since Christmas and New Year’s.
“The rate of increase is not as severe as after Thanksgiving,” Mayor London Breed said at a media briefing Tuesday. “This is some good news.”
But the Bay Area continues with the stay- at- home rules because available intensive care unit capacity across the region is still critical, at less than 5%.
In Santa Clara County, conditions in hospitals are still strained. The morgues at three hospitals are at capacity and four others are near capacity. But on the positive side, while hospitalizations are still worsening, the increase is “not as fast” as it was, said Dr. Ahmad Kamal, the county health preparedness director.
Statewide, officials said there is some initial evidence the Christmas spike has not been as bad as the Thanksgiving spike.
The number of coronavirus- positive patients hospitalized throughout California has plateaued at just under 22,000, and new COVID- 19 admissions have also declined — from roughly 3,500 new hospitalized patients a day last week to between 2,500 and 2,600, according to Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s health and human services secretary.
While the number of cases can be skewed by how many people are being tested, and when those results are being reported, he said Tuesday that “hospital numbers don’t lie.”
“People come to the hospital, they get the care that they need when they need it because they’re that sick,” he said during a briefing. “And so, to see a reduction in our hospital numbers in the last week to 10 days, in terms of the rate of rise, I think is a very encouraging sign. But we’re not out of the woods. We know that there’s still a lot of COVID in our communities, that people can easily transmit it.”
That’s also not to say a decline is imminent, Ghaly said: “We are preparing and anticipate that some increase in hospitalizations will come in the middle of the month.”
California on Tuesday posted single- day highs for coronavirus cases and deaths — well above the daily average.
A preliminary, incomplete daily survey conducted by The Times found at least 50,000 coronavirus cases and at least 602 deaths reported Tuesday.
The death tally would be at least the second- highest of any single day in the pandemic and raise the average of COVID deaths California is reporting to at least 509 a day over the past week.
But in Southern California, officials warn the worst may still be ahead. The Southland and the San Joaquin Valley were still at 0% available ICU capacity as of Tuesday.
Besides Los Angeles County, the Inland Empire has been battered by the surge, with hospitals overf lowing with patients. Even coastal counties to the northwest — San Luis Obispo, Ventura and Santa Barbara — have seen alarming increases in cases over the last week.
L. A. County had recorded a cumulative total of 947,035 coronavirus cases as of Tuesday, and 12,706 cumulative COVID- 19 deaths.
More than 2,300 people countywide have died from COVID- 19 since New Year’s Day, and L. A. County has averaged about 231 COVID- 19 deaths daily over the last week, a rate higher than at any other point during the pandemic.
Though the number of COVID- 19 patients hospitalized countywide has stabilized, at just shy of 8,000, the sustained increase has forced some county hospitals to set up beds in hallways and even in gift shops and keep some patients waiting in ambulances for as many as 17 hours before room in the emergency room opens up.
And L. A. is seeing “signs of this deadly surge continuing, even though the numbers of hospitalized patients across the county have stabilized for now,” Ghaly said Monday