California’s coronavirus watchlist reaches highest level yet: 23 counties

New to the list: Colusa, Madera, Marin, Merced, Monterey and San Diego. Back on the list: Contra Costa

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s watchlist of counties with concerning infection and hospitalization rates reached its highest level yet Monday — another indication that the spread of the coronavirus is worsening across California.

On the heels of the long holiday weekend, California surpassed 269,400 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and has seen at least 6,438 deaths. Meanwhile, hospitalizations across the state have risen 50% over the past two weeks and coronavirus tests are coming back positive at a rate that has jumped nearly 40%.

Those signs are raising widespread alarms about the state’s reopening, even in the Bay Area.

The list of counties Newsom and state health officials are monitoring in partnership with local leaders grew by six Monday, from 19 late last week to 23. The state adds counties to the watchlist if they exceed its thresholds for certain criteria, including significant changes in COVID-19 infection rates, increases in hospitalizations, and availability of intensive care unit beds and ventilators.

New to the list on Monday: Colusa, Madera, Marin, Merced, Monterey and San Diego counties. Back on the list: Contra Costa — hammering home the notion there are no guarantees that once a county is removed from the list, it won’t return.

If the math doesn’t add up, allow the governor to explain.

“When I last left you on Thursday, there were 19 counties on that list. Today we have 23 counties,” Newsom said at his daily video news conference Monday. “You see the newly added counties, 19 plus six doesn’t equal 23. We have counties coming on and counties coming off.”

Santa Clara County — which has long had the state’s most restrictive public health order — was removed Monday from the state’s watchlist because its number of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 did not increase by 10% over the past three days — the state’s threshold.

The decision to remove Santa Clara from the list came after a confusing holiday weekend for the South Bay, when the state rejected Santa Clara County’s request to expand its reopening plan and sent armed agents from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to restaurants in Morgan Hill and Gilroy to inform owners they were violating state orders and should shut down outdoor service or risk a citation.

Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith said even he is “wondering what it means” that the county was taken off the state’s watchlist yet couldn’t allow more businesses to reopen, as it has requested in its July 2 variance. The county has submitted more data about hospital admissions and other criteria that the state is monitoring, but it is unclear whether — or how quickly — the state will reverse its decision.

“We’d hope it would be quick because they pretty much allowed outdoor dining in all the rest of the state, including San Mateo and Alameda counties, and it would only make sense,” Smith said. “But one doesn’t know what’s going on up there in Sacramento.”

Santa Clara County had been on the state’s watchlist due to its hospitalization rate having risen more than 10%. But according to Smith, the way the state computed the rise “penalized” counties like Santa Clara whose rates were very low to begin with compared to others.

Had the state approved the county’s variance, nail salons, gyms, zoos and more were going to be allowed to reopen in about three weeks, so long as they followed strict social distancing and face-covering requirements.

In the case of Contra Costa County, the primary concern among state officials is a rise in hospitalizations that has paralleled an increase in cases. The sevenday average of cases there has risen to 125 per day — up from 45 per day two weeks ago — and hospitalizations have risen 80% in the same time span.

The state has proposed delaying the reopening of additional businesses in Contra Costa, continuing to urge people to stay home and abide by the state’s mask mandate, as well as providing more personal protective equipment and guidance to congregate care and assisted-living communities.

In Marin County, officials noted that a recent increase in cases includes a major outbreak at San Quentin State Prison, but said the spread of the virus is not limited to the prison walls. There is also “increased community transmission among essential workers and outbreaks in congregate settings and Latinx neighborhoods,” according to the California Department of Public Health.

As of Monday, 2,445 inmates in the California Corrections System have tested positive for COVID-19 — half of whom are at San Quentin, according to Newsom, who added that an outbreak at California State Prison Solano in Vacaville is also a primary concern for the state.

Elsewhere in the Bay Area, Solano County has been on the list since last week. The California Department of Public Health attributed that to “a large outbreak among farm workers in the vineyards in Sonoma and Napa who are residing in Solano,” as well as an ongoing surge in cases related to family and other social gatherings on weekends.

Solano County’s sevenday case average has risen 75% in the past two weeks — from 19 per day to 51 — while the number of patients hospitalized has doubled in that period, from 17 to 38. In contrast, neighboring Napa County has six hospitalized patients while Sonoma County has 15.

“We’d hope it would be quick because they pretty much allowed outdoor dining in all the rest of the state, including San Mateo and Alameda counties, and it would only make sense. But one doesn’t know what’s going on up there in Sacramento.” — Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith