What is California’s current outlook?
State is nearing a new low in cases of COVID-19
California recorded fewer cases of COVID-19 this past week than any other since the lows of last fall, according to data compiled by The Mercury News. And while the pace of decline has slowed, the state is within reach of its fewest weekly cases of the pandemic.
For the first time since prior to Halloween, California recorded an average of fewer than 4,000 cases per day over the past week, less than a tenth of its January peak and nearly 30% fewer than two weeks ago. At its current pace, California would hit a new all-time low in average daily cases, below 3,000, within the next two weeks.
Compared to earlier on this winter, however, California’s improvement has leveled off. Throughout February, the state cut its average daily cases in half about every two weeks.
The trend of hospitalizations, which has tended to trail cases by about two weeks, has yet to show any signs of slowing its decline.
With 3,477 active hospitalizations, according to state data, fewer Californians are hospitalized with COVID-19 than any time since the second week of November. From a peak of nearly 22,000 in January, hospitalizations have fallen by 85%, including 41% in the past two weeks, matching the pace set last month.
Despite that, California still must cut its hospitalizations by another 44% to lower the level past any point since the state began tracking that metric almost one year ago. To reach the comfortable plateaus of last fall, the state has another 33% to go.
California’s death toll rose by another 1,676 over the past week, or an average of approximately 239 per day. While that’s a decline of almost 60% from the height of the pandemic in January, California continues to record more fatalities than at any point prior to mid-December.
All this comes amid a backdrop of a growing number of vaccines being deployed across California and the nation. This week, President Joe Biden said all American adults should have access to the vaccine by the end of May.
In California, about a quarter of adults have received at least one shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but that ranks behind 29 other states in percentage of its population at least partially inoculated.
Over the course of the pandemic, no state has recorded more cases of COVID-19 — nearly 3.6 million — or fatalities from the virus —over 55,000 — than California, though on a per-capita basis, it has outperformed many other states in managing the virus.
Larger proportions of people in 28 other states have either contracted the virus or been killed by it, according to data collected by the New York Times. The percapita death rate in California is about 15% lower than the national average and nearly half that of the nation’s worst rate in New Jersey. Compared to North Dakota,
where about one in every seven residents has tested positive, the highest rate in the nation, California has recorded 30% fewer infections per-capita.
The Bay Area has fared substantially better than California as a whole. Just five states have recorded fewer infections per-capita than the Bay Area, which has a larger population than any of them. The region has recorded cases at nearly one-third of the statewide rate percapita and accounted for just over one in every 10 deaths in California, despite being home to about one in every five Californians.
Recently, Texas endured a bad weather snap totally unprepared, resulting in numerous fatalities and suffering across the state. As a friend of mine in Houston put it, “I’m all right but others aren’t.” Gov. Greg Abbott obviously did not have clue what to do.
Subsequently, Abbott has tried to open up Texas, so the coronavirus can seriously spread. Some local officials are trying to implement their own restrictions, but Abbott wants the entire state to be a super spreader.
This proves beyond any doubt that Texas is truly a third-world state!
— Eric Petersen, Salinas