Patient decrease
The people number in Bay of Area hospitals with COVID-19 has declined steadily — to 332 — since peaking on April 7.
The number of people in Bay Area hospitals with confirmed cases of COVID19 has declined steadily for nearly a month, a trend public health experts said reflects the region’s efforts to combat spread of the coronavirus.
State data reviewed by The Chronicle show there were 332 confirmed COVID19 patients in hospitals in the nine Bay Area counties on Sunday, the area’s lowest oneday total in more than a month since the state began reporting that data April 1.
The number of hospitalized coronavirus patients in the Bay Area reached its peak on April 7, with 471 confirmed cases. Sunday’s figure — the most recent data available — reflected a 29.5% drop from that day and a decrease of 11.2% over one week.
“I find it very encouraging,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley. “It’s clearly a trend in the right direction. … I guess I would say that I’m just hopeful that this trend is going to continue.
“More specifically, I think this reflects all of the efforts we’ve been doing in shelter in place and the early aggressive interventions that the Bay Area undertook compared to frankly other parts of the state and other parts of the country.”
Six Bay Area counties and the city of Berkeley ordered residents to shelter in place beginning on March 17, with Gov. Gavin Newsom announcing a statewide order two days later. The Bay Area counties last week extended shelterinplace orders through the end of May with some modifications. Newsom said on Monday that some nonessential businesses in California may soon be able to open for pickup orders under new guidelines expected to be released later this week.
“One of the governor’s criteria was to have adequate bed capacity in case everything went wrong,” Dr. George Rutherford, head of infectious diseases and epidemiology at UCSF, said over the weekend. “So, I think the fact that we’re seeing declining bed days is important. I’m not sure quite how far he wants to go to check that box off, but I think we’re getting there.”
Hospital counts are viewed as a more reliable reflection of the virus’ trajectory than case counts as they are not dependent on availability of testing. The decline in hospitalizations suggests Bay Area counties have slowed the spread of the virus, though experts cautioned that can still change.
“I think you have to view it as a job well done by the people of San Francisco and the Bay Area,” Rutherford said. “Now, understand you can’t have it like Orange County, where everyone goes out and stands on the beach an inch apart, or else we’ll have everything blow back up again.”
Exact trends vary by county. Santa Clara County reported its peak in confirmed hospital cases with 187 on April 7, with that total gradually declining to 93 reported Sunday.
Hospital cases in San Francisco peaked at 92 on April 12 and are at 83 as of Sunday.
In Alameda and Contra Costa counties, hospitalizations peaked in the second week of April and have since mostly declined with occasional spikes. Alameda County reported 73 hospital cases Sunday, down 21.5% from its April 10 high. Contra Costa hospitalizations have fallen by more than 50% to 20 on Sunday from 46 on April 12.
The number of local COVID19 patients in intensive care has followed a similar trajectory, down 35.8% on Sunday from a oneday peak of 212 on April 7 – though the total ticked upward to 136 on Sunday from a low of 132 reported Friday. Both hospitalization and ICU peak totals were relatively low for a ninecounty area with a population of about 7.7 million.
Los Angeles County, by comparison, with a population of 10 million, reached April peaks of 1,962 hospitalizations and 625 ICU cases, according to the CDPH. As of Sunday, Los Angeles County accounted for more than half of California’s totals in both categories.
Statewide, hospital and ICU counts rose for much of April but have taken an encouraging recent turn. California hospital cases have declined for four consecutive days; they peaked at 3,497 on April 29. And confirmed ICU cases were down 5% from a peak of 1,241 on April 20.
As some areas of the state have pushed to loosen stayathome orders, others have expressed wariness about that leading to a resurgence of the virus. Rutherford said the virus “has a short incubation period, so we should see a rebound in cases pretty quickly if we’re going to see a rebound … which we all profoundly hope we don’t.”