State, Bay Area COVID cases stubbornly high
COVID-19 cases remain stubbornly high across California despite some indicators earlier this week that the state had moved past the peak of its spring surge, with the Bay Area continuing to outpace other regions with its rate of infections.
“You have new transmissible variants and people being fed up,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist with UCSF. “If people were still being cautious and we had the same variant for a long time, you would have that quick downslope that we saw in the winter. But now all bets are off.”
The statewide number bounced back up on Tuesday with 42 new daily coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents after nearly a month hovering around 35 cases per 100,000.
California has now reported more than 10 million cases since the start of the pandemic, according to state data analyzed by The Chronicle, with the Bay Area crossing the threshold of 1.5 million total cases. And those figures do not include results of widely used home tests that are not reported to officials, nor cases that go undetected.
The state’s test positive rate, which tracks the percentage of tests coming back positive for COVID-19, also increased to 13.2%. That rate has steadily climbed since mid-March and is now nearly double what officials reported on June 1. Infectious disease experts say it should be under 5% to control the spread of the virus.
“You’re just having a steady state of people getting infected,” said Chin-Hong.
While the high volume of cases has not caused excessive strain on the health care system, the number of hospitalizations is steadily rising. There are 3,405 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 across the state, up 46% from the beginning of the month. California is reporting about 15 deaths per day due to the virus.
The Bay Area is currently seeing about 49 infections per day per 100,000 residents. A spate of community events and gatherings, starting with Memorial Day concerts and celebrations through to crowded parades for the Golden State Warriors and San Francisco’s Pride, may keep those numbers high, with fast-spreading offshoots of the omicron coronavirus variant tightening their grip on the region.
“Whenever you see an outdoor event, there are a lot of indoor gatherings associated with those things,” said ChinHong. “There is a lot of spillover from high-risk events, where people gather in bars or go to after-parties.”
BA.4 and BA.5 made up a combined 52% of COVID-19 cases in the United States last week, according to estimates published Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The highly transmissible sublineages are crowding out BA.2 and BA.2.12.1, with BA.5 making up about 36.6% of new cases nationally and BA.4 about 15.7%. And experts say they’re responsible for a larger number of COVID reinfections than earlier subvariants due to their ability to evade pre-existing immunity.
The proportions are roughly the same in the Northern California region. Many public health officials are uncertain about what impact these newer BA.4 and BA.5 mutations will have on levels of severe disease.
“The more people you have getting infected, the more will be going to the hospital,” said Chin-Hong.
San Francisco may already be feeling the impact of the subvariants as the city is averaging about 52 daily cases per 100,000 residents, a number that has barely budged over the past week.
On Tuesday, the coronavirus test positive rate in San Francisco skyrocketed to 15.4% — higher than any other point during the pandemic except the winter omicron surge. Mayor London Breed announced earlier last week that she was among those who tested positive.
There were 115 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the city’s hospitals as of Monday, about 26% more than a month ago.
“It’s like a slow burn,” said Chin-Hong. “It’s continuing to put pressure on the workforce, but no one is talking about it because we’ve been doing it for so long that everyone just accepts it. I think the cumulative effect is hard on people.”
Other Bay Area counties are also reporting rates above the state average. Alameda County has about 49 daily cases per 100,000 residents; Contra Costa County is reporting 44; San Mateo, 51; Santa Clara, 54; Solano, 46; and Sonoma, 44.
Despite the lack of progress against the pandemic, many local health officials are scaling back their pandemic efforts.
Alameda County dropped its indoor mask mandate, which it reinstated in response to the rising case counts, after just three weeks on Saturday.
“Conditions have stabilized following the sustained increases in case reports and hospitalizations we saw throughout May,” Dr. Nicholas Moss, the county’s health officer said in a statement. “While we expect continued impacts from COVID-19 in the coming weeks and masks remain strongly recommended, it is appropriate to step down from the Health Officer masking Order at this time.”
Officials in Sonoma County similarly dialed down their response, with plans this week to reduce a temporary workforce of about 60 staff within the county health department by a third.
“It’s understandable why they may be scaling back now,” said Chin-Hong. “We have the tools. We know what to do. They have other things to deal with, like monkeypox. But I would caution scaling back as a permanent fixture. What they should be doing is a flexible model. We don’t know what will happen in the fall.”