Bay Area cases grow as state numbers climb

Bay Area officials reported new totals of confirmed COVID-19 cases Sunday, tracking the spread of the disease as the number of patients in the region moved toward 4,000.

Santa Clara County, which has been the epicenter of the Bay Area’s outbreak, said that 59 new patients had been confirmed, bringing the number of confirmed cases in the county to slightly more than 1,200. No new deaths were recorded from the novel coronavirus, keeping the county death toll at 39.

In the East Bay, Contra Costa County officials said they had confirmed 33 new cases of the disease, making the county’s total 386 as of Sunday. A resident at the Orinda Care Center who was already in end-of-life hospice care died of coronavirus complications, a county health spokesman said.

Alameda County had a new total Sunday of 566 confirmed cases, including 27 in Berkeley, which operates its own public health department. No new deaths were reported.

In San Francisco, 39 new cases took the city and county’s total to 568. The city remained at eight deaths after one was announced on Saturday.

The total number of confirmed cases in San Mateo County rose by 17 on Sunday, taking the county to 555 patients. The death toll remained at 13, with no new COVID-19 deaths reported in the county.

The Bay Area News Group’s tracking of confirmed local cases of COVID-19 showed slightly fewer than 3,500 cases as of late Saturday. A new total was not available Sunday afternoon, as not all counties had reported their case numbers.

State officials said Sunday that some 131,500 tests had been performed across California, although a backlog of some 15,000 tests remained unread as laboratories tried to work through the kits.