County ‘bracing’ for virus torrent
Hospitalizations ebb, but infections swell
Although coronavirus hospitalizations decreased over the holiday weekend in Marin, health officials said a record-setting surge of new cases could worsen the county’s winter wave of infections.
Marin’s hospitals were treating 24 coronavirus patients on Monday, down by more than 25% from the pandemic high of 35 patients on Dec. 16.
With eight of those patients requiring intensive care, the availability of intensive care unit beds in Marin rose to 9%, up from 0% reported by county health officials two weeks ago.
“That is encouraging, but it’s important to recognize that we’ve also more recently had days with some of the highest numbers of cases,” said Dr. Matt Willis, the county’s public health officer. “We’re bracing ourselves for the hospitalizations that might follow.”
Patients who require hospitalization from the virus are typically admitted to hospitals a week or two after testing positive, Willis said.
By the end of the holiday weekend, the county had reported a weekly average of 79 new infections per day over, up 4% from the seven- day average the week prior and up 182% from a month ago. And in the aftermath of holiday celebrations, health officials expect case rates to continue rising. Marin’s latest hospital surge was largely driven by gatherings on Thanksgiving, according to Willis.
“The biggest driver (of infections) now is social gatherings across households, especially indoors,” Willis said. “That’s the reason we’re so concerned that Christmas and New Year’s could drive a surge on top of a surge.”
Health officials reported two more deaths from the virus over the weekend, bringing the county’s total pandemic death toll to 110. About 84% of the deaths occurred in senior living centers, according to county data. Outbreaks at those senior sites have continued, with 55 active cases among residents and 79 among staff on Sunday, the data show.
Roughly 60% of people who died with the coronavirus in Marin were over the age of 80, while that age demographic makes up just 16% of the county’s population, county data show. Another 33% were between the ages of 65 and 79, while 5% were between 50 and 64 and 2% were between 35 and 49.
Statewide, California’s record-smashing virus surge was hardly curtailed over the holidays, with cases still coming in the tens of thousands every day and more patients hospitalized than ever — three times as many as on Thanksgiving.
The state followed Saturday’s tally of over 50,000 new cases with another 28,871 on Sunday, increasing the daily average over the past week to about 37,500 cases per day after it dipped briefly over Christmas. The death toll in California climbed to 24,285, with an average of about 230 each day over the past week, including 64 on Sunday.
Following the holiday slowdown, California’s case count remains about 17% shy of its pre- Christmas peak but is still three times higher than it was a month ago. With nearly 10 coronavirus-related fatalities every hour, California is also averaging close to its highest death tolls of the pandemic, about 12% below its pre- Christmas peak.
The day after Christmas, active hospitalizations from the virus climbed over 19,000 for the first time of the pandemic, an increase of over 12,000 infected patients in the month since Thanksgiving, a 189% spike in that time. In the southern half of the state, intensive care units have been effectively full for the past week with little capacity in other regions.
In the Bay Area, 11.1% of staffed and licensed ICU beds were available, according to the latest figures from the state, while there was about 17.8% capacity in Greater Sacramento and 28.3% in Northern California.
However, hospitalizations have grown more slowly over the past week than the one preceding it. Statewide, the rise in hospitalizations has also outpaced that in the Bay Area.
Across California, there were approximately 14.5% more coronavirus patients than a week ago, compared to a 30% increase in the week prior. In the Bay Area, hospitalizations also hit a new high, with nearly 2,000 virus patients receiving care throughout the region — about 9.5% more than a week ago, substantially lower than the 26% increase from the week prior.
As the nation’s most populous state, and one with a raging outbreak of COVID-19, California has more active cases and hospitalizations than any other state in the nation. But recently it has also become one of the nation’s hotspots, even on a per- capita basis, which factors in California’s massive population.
Overall, an average of about 95 in every 100,000 Californians tested positive for the virus each day over the past week, higher than any of the other 49 states. With between 130 and 165 daily cases per capita over the past week, the three Southern California counties of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside have among the highest infection rates of any counties in the nation.
In the Bay Area, however, the infection rate remains lower than elsewhere in the state: about 50 daily cases for every 100,000 residents, a rate on par with Idaho and Texas over the past week.
Nationwide, the curve of cases is beginning to bend downward, but it remains to be seen what impact Christmas and New Year’s may have on the numbers. Despite pleas from health officials to stay home, more travelers passed through airport security checkpoints on Sunday than any other day since the pandemic began, breaking the previous record set over Thanksgiving weekend.
The nation is averaging fewer than 200,000 cases per day for the first time since the first week of December, according to data collected by the New York Times, but more than 2,200 Americans are still dying each day. To date, at least 19.1 million Americans have been infected with COVID-19 and more than 333,000 have perished from the virus.