California’s outbreak is ‘stabilizing,’ official says

The coronavirus pandemic in California is stabilizing and showing other signs of improvement, the state’s top health official said Tuesday.

Statewide, cases and hospitalizations are trending downward overall, said Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly.

The number of Californians hospitalized for COVID19 had been falling steadily over the past two weeks, but rose for the first time Monday, Ghaly said. He added that it is too soon to say whether that reversal is part of a larger trend or a oneoff.

“Overall the state picture is stabilizing and coming down some,” he said. “But this is not about the aggregate, it is about what is experienced at the county and regional level.”

California has reported 636,883 cases, including 11,390 deaths, as of Tuesday afternoon. The Bay Area has seen 73,916 cases, including 985 deaths.

Ghaly’s remarks build on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s cautious optimism Monday, when he said the state — after clearing a backlog of cases from a statewide data reporting problem that began in July — is still seeing high case counts, but that they are “trending in the right direction.”

Some parts of the Bay Area are seeing promising signals of improvement, though health officials cautioned it is too soon to declare longterm, sustained progress.

Marin County is starting to see “some flattening of the curve,” Health Officer Dr. Matt Willis said during a COVID19 update to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

“We’re seeing signs that our transmission has reduced,” he said.

The 14day case rate in Marin County has fallen from more than 200 per 100,000 people on Aug. 1 to 171 per 100,000 on Aug. 13, according to county data.

Hospitalizations and test turnaround times are declining, and R0 — pronounced “R naught,” a measure of how many people each sick person infects — is now below 1, Willis said.

“The sum of those offer a reassuring picture of a decline in our transmission,” he said.

Test turnaround times from Quest Diagnostics, a major lab services provider, have fallen significantly in Marin County over the last two weeks, from seven to 10 days to about four days.

Similarly, test turnaround times statewide are also improving in part because the statewide testing task force has worked to send tests to labs that can process them more quickly.

“We are starting to see the fruits of some of our labor,” Ghaly said. “Doing that supplydemand matching has been effective and paid off.”

Another sign of improvement: Napa County as of Tuesday is meeting all state data objectives for controlling its local outbreak, and may be removed from the California public health watch list later this week. All nine Bay Area counties have been on the watch list since July 9. Napa County is the first in the region to newly meet the statemandated metrics.

The state froze the watch list last week due to the data collection errors, but reopened it on Monday. Five counties were added to the list then, and Santa Cruz County was removed.

The state has not yet said what happens when counties are taken off the list. A July 13 state health order requires counties on the watch list for three or more consecutive days to close almost all indoor activities, but it’s not clear whether they can reopen those businesses right away once they are removed from the list.

In Santa Clara County, where public health officials on Tuesday unveiled a massive testing clinic at the county fairgrounds, Health Officer Sara Cody said they’re still in a crisis that requires immense focus and rallying of resources.

According to the county website, public health officials currently are analyzing backlogged data recently received from the state and looking at “any remaining gaps.”

“We started here as really ground zero for COVID in the United States, and six months in, we’re still fighting,” Cody said Tuesday at a news briefing. “The reason we’re still fighting is we have not had the tools to get us out. And one of the most important tools is testing.”

The fairground site will be able to test up to 1,000 people a day by the end of the week, and can expand to up to 5,000 a day, making it the highestcapacity testing clinic in the Bay Area, Cody said. The site also will be used to provide flu vaccines and, eventually, a coronavirus vaccine.

“Testing is the way we are going to get out of this: Get tested, know your status, and take action,” Cody said. “Spread the word to families and friends and coworkers to do the same.”