State must act to counter third COVID-19 surge

Coronavirus data suggests that California and the Bay Area are exiting the calm and entering the third surge of the deadly disease that has taken root elsewhere in the country.

As a state and a region, we can slow the spread. But that means learning from our past mistakes and doubling down on preventive measures — being more vigilant than ever with our hand-washing, social distancing, mask-wearing and avoidance of groups and crowds.

It means that state and county officials should freeze and roll back reopening plans, as San Francisco and Contra Costa counties are doing. It means, as tough as it might be, looking for virtual alternatives to holiday family gatherings and avoiding travel in and out of the region. And it means, as Bay Area health officials are considering, quarantining people who come from out of state.

While California’s cases per capita rank low in comparison to other states, that’s nothing to brag about at a time when the virus is spreading rapidly elsewhere and our state’s trend line is going in the wrong direction.

The United States on Wednesday for the first time reported more than 100,000 new daily cases. Contrary to President Donald Trump’s false claims, the increase isn’t just attributable to increased testing. The number of tests coming back positive has soared from 4% to 7% in just one month. And daily deaths, a lagging indicator, are also rising

It’s not surprising. As we approach winter, the weather is cooling, forcing more people indoors where the virus spreads more easily. People are growing weary of the isolation as we enter our ninth month of restrictive living. And Trump, setting a dangerous example for the country, still shuns masks, one of the most effective ways to slow the spread of the deadly disease.

California and the Bay Area cannot afford to wait for the rest of the country to alter its behavior. We must act before we get swept up in this coming wave. There are clear signs it has already arrived.

In California, new cases have been on the rise since mid- October. Hospitalizations are edging back up and are already at the levels we saw in mid-April, when the state was entering its first surge. The percentage of COVID-19 tests coming back positive has increased in the past two weeks from 2.4% to 3.3% — still lower than it has been during past onslaughts, but the trend line is troubling.

Likewise, in the nine Bay Area counties and Santa Cruz County, cases are rising, along with hospitalizations and patients in intensive care units. While the numbers are still low compared to the rest of the country, the winter cold has not begun to set in here.

As the season changes, as we approach Thanksgiving and then Christmas and New Year’s Day, as the virus spreads from elsewhere in the nation, it’s just a matter of time before the third wave strikes. How bad it will be depends on what we do and don’t do now.