State records second straight staggering day of cases
Near-record fatalities reported
More Californians were added to the state’s death toll from COVID-19 on Tuesday than all but one other day of the pandemic, while new cases of the virus continued to come in larger numbers than ever before.
On Tuesday, California reported 34,775 new infections and 212 fatalities from COVID-19, according to data compiled by this news organization. The case count Tuesday edged out the the total Monday, which shattered the previous daily record; the daily death toll exceeded every other day in the past nine-plus months except July 31, at the height of the summertime surge.
However, there are no indications that California’s current surge has reached its peak. Cases, hospitalizations and deaths are still on the rise, and capacity in intensive care units continued to dwindle.
Over the past week, California is averaging nearly 25,000 new cases and 134 fatalities per day, 77% and 110% higher, respectively, than when the week began. Over the same time, active hospitalizations in the state have increased by 28% to a record 10,567 on Monday, according to data from the California Department of Public Health, and ICU available capacity has fallen to 13.3%. Compared to the start of November, the state’s average daily case count has quintupled, its hospitalizations have quadrupled, and the average daily death toll has tripled.
The only more deadly period of the pandemic in California than the past week came during the first two weeks of August, when the state averaged about 145 deaths per day, with a weekly high of 1,016 casualties. That total included the all-time daily record of 215, which came July 31. California has recorded 936 fatalities in the past seven days, within 10% of its deadliest previous week.
Despite the near-record death toll statewide on Tuesday, it wasn’t an abnormally deadly day in the Bay Area. The region reported fewer combined fatalities than six individual counties in other parts of California. Alameda County led the region with five new victims of the virus, followed by one each in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. The 3,097 cases around the region, however, were second only to the record-shattering total from the previous day, and the 1,111 in Alameda County were its most ever.
The Bay Area is trending similarly to the state: Cases are up 64% from a week ago; hospitalizations have increased about 27%; and the daily death toll has about doubled. On a percapita basis, however, infections and fatalities in the Bay Area were still coming at rates about half that of all of California. At 24.5%, the region has the second-highest remaining ICU capacity in the state.
The four largest tallies of fatalities Tuesday came in the Southern California region, where ICU capacity has fallen to 10.1%, according to state data. Los Angeles County reported its most deaths since the first week of August and led all of California with 64 on Tuesday, followed by 26 in San Diego, 25 in Riverside and 19 in San Bernardino County.
In the San Joaquin Valley region, which with nearly 95% of ICU beds occupied has the fewest licensed and staffed ICU beds still available in California, Madera County reported its highest daily death toll of the pandemic with 17 on Tuesday, three times more than any previous day, and Fresno County reported eight new victims of the virus.
In Sacramento, the 15 deaths reported Tuesday were its fourth-most of the pandemic and the most since the end of August.
While California’s cumulative death toll climbed on Tuesday, the nationwide total surpassed 286,000, according to data collected by the New York Times. Globally, there have been more than 1.5 million victims of the novel coronavirus.
In California, the infection rate has nearly pulled even with the national average: about 62.8 daily cases for every 100,000 residents in the state, compared to a national rate of about 63.1. Just two weeks ago, California’s rate was about 33.8, well below the national rate of 53.5 at that time. In the Bay Area, the infection rate has doubled in that time, from about 17.3 to 35.5. In Los Angeles County, there were close to 83 daily infections for every 100,000 residents in the past week, a rate higher than North Dakota and Arizona, and would rank 12th among all states.
Nationwide, more Americans are testing positive and more are hospitalized than any other point of the pandemic. In the past week, an average of over 207,000 per day have tested positive for the virus and an average of more than 2,200 per day have perished from it, according to the Times’ data, while more than 104,000 Americans are currently hospitalized, according to the COVID Tracking Project.