Alameda County hits 10,000
Virus surge: First Bay Area region to top milestone faults gatherings
Oakland officials pleaded with residents Friday to stop gathering at Lake Merritt, as hundreds more Alameda County residents tested positive and pushed the number of coronavirus cases to more than 10,000 — the first Bay Area county to reach that unfortunate milestone.
Amid a persistent statewide surge in the deadly disease, Alameda County became the ninth of 58 California counties to exceed 10,000 cases. On Friday, with 345 more people testing positive, the county recorded 10,214 cases and 178 deaths since the pandemic began. Oakland accounts for nearly 40% of the county’s infections, at 4,026 cases.
Of particular concern is East Oakland, which is seeing numbers “double and triple” the rate of the city as a whole, public health experts said. In addition, most residents are lowincome people of color, who tend to have higher rates of infection
than other ethnicities. Like similar neighborhoods across the Bay Area, people live in closer quarters and work frontline jobs where they are less able to practice social distancing. County data show that 69% of all Oakland residents infected with the coronavirus live in East Oakland.
On Friday, public health experts and city officials focused on a different reason for the county’s spike: Parties and gatherings that residents continue to hold at Lake Merritt and in other public spaces.
Although city officials outlawed vendors and weekend parking at parks in May, they have not enforced the ban. Nearly 60 vendors sold food, alcohol, cannabis and merchandise at Lake Merritt last weekend, and people showed up by the hundreds.
“It’s exploded,” said Joe DeVries, an assistant to the city administrator. “That is why we are taking action.”
He said the city will first warn, then fine, vendors who continue to show up by slapping administrative penalties on their vehicles.
“We have a particular concern about this because of the large gatherings we’ve seen at (Lake Merritt) in particular over the past few months,” said Oakland Councilwoman Nikki Fortunato Bas. “We have to protect our collective health, our public health, and make sure we are giving the lake a break.”
Alameda County’s bad news reflects a troubling statewide trend. Since the start of the pandemic, California has recorded 440,318 cases and 8,339 deaths. Across the Bay Area, there have been 47,076 cases and 758 deaths.
The state has averaged 8,575 new cases a day in July, — more than double the 4,007 average of June, according to a Chronicle analysis of county data. Bay Area counties have averaged 836 new cases a day this month, compared with 393 in June.
The number of COVID19 patients in Bay Area hospitals surged to a record 797 on Thursday, according to state data released Friday. That increase was in part attributed to the stark increase in Alameda County, which recorded 35 more hospitalizations for an alltime high of 201.
“We are currently in not particularly great shape as a state,” said George Rutherford, an infectiousdisease expert with UCSF. “We had a spectacular response early on and especially in the Bay Area, where we not only flattened the curve, we stomped it. However, since Memorial Day across the southern United States as a whole and along the West Coast, cases are rising. And in California, cases have risen fourfold per day.”
Meanwhile, public health officials blamed East Oakland’s alarming surge largely on parties and social gatherings.
“When we look at East Oakland, the case rates are double and even triple the rest of Oakland,” said Dr. Noha Aboelata, the CEO of Roots Community Health Center. “Things are heading in the wrong direction. Behind every one of those numbers is a person. Most of the time, it’s the entire household.”
East Oakland’s sharp rise is particularly concerning due to its demographics, said Nicholas Moss, the interim health officer in Alameda County.
East Oakland is 51% African American and 38% Latino. Moss said county data show Latino residents are more than six times as likely to get COVID19, and Black people are twice as likely to die from it as white residents.
“Over the past month, we’ve seen more people infected by attending parties, social events and family gatherings,” he said. “Social gatherings play a much larger role than we had expected.”
Moss said the county expects another case surge in about a week in people who attended parties over the Fourth of July.
On Friday, Santa Clara County officials also called attention to the alarming number of cases and deaths in their county. The county’s cases reached 8,533 Friday, or about 380 cases for every 100,000 people. More than 180 people have died of COVID19 in the county.
People in their 20s make up the largest group of those infected with the coronavirus — about 19%, county officials said at a news conference Friday. The next largest group are those in their 30s, at 18.5%.
On Friday, county officials held a news conference where young people who work in the county’s emergency operations center spoke about the need to avoid infection.
“It’s actually very important for us to make sure that ... we keep each other safe, as well as our families,” said Lizeth Venegas Mata, one of the speakers. “Maybe we (would) be able to fight this off, but maybe our parents wouldn’t. A lot of our parents might be elderly or might have diabetes. It’s very important for us to keep them safe as well.”