CASE NUMBERS REMAIN ELEVATED ACROSS CALIF.
Average of 15,900 new infections a day reported last week
The number of newly reported coronavirus cases remains elevated across California, as health officials continue to wrestle with the pandemic’s latest wave.
Across California, health officials reported an average of about 15,900 new coronavirus infections a day over the last week — roughly in line with the rate recorded over the previous week, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of state data released Monday.
However, it’s too soon to say whether a plateau or even a downturn is imminent. Modeling from the California Department of Public Health suggests that the spread of COVID-19 is likely still increasing in Southern California but might be stable in the San Francisco Bay Area and the northern swath of the state.
Recent official case tallies are also almost assuredly an undercount, as many people are screening themselves using at-home coronavirus tests, the results of which are not reliably reported to health officials.
It’s also likely that, with schools letting out, fewer cases will be found through regular campus screenings.
Even so, at the current high rate of transmission, California could surpass 10 million cumulative reported and probable coronavirus cases by the end of next week. So far, 9.84 million such cases have been tallied throughout the pandemic.
The current crush of cases is also continuing to send increasing numbers of coronavirus-positive patients to California hospitals.
On the one hand, 2,762 such individuals were hospitalized statewide as of Monday — up 26 percent from two weeks ago.
On the other hand, the patient count remains well shy of the harrowing peaks seen earlier in the pandemic. The hospital census has yet to reach even the level seen during the gap between last summer’s Delta wave and the first Omicron surge that struck over the fall and winter.
Officials are quick to note that many of those included in the hospital tally are not necessarily being treated for COVID-19. But too many coronavirus-positive patients in hospitals, whether they’re sick because of COVID-19 or tested positive incidentally, strain resources because of the additional safety procedures necessary to keep the virus from spreading.