Bay Area’s decline slightly outpaces state plateau

California’s plateau in COVID-19 cases continued Monday while the average daily deaths in the state remained near its lowest point in months.

Counties around the state reported another 4,064 cases of COVID-19 and 34 deaths from the virus Monday, according to data compiled by this news organization. The average daily cases over the past week increased slightly to about 3,250 per day but was down about 9% compared to two weeks ago. Average daily deaths have decreased about 11% in two weeks to about 77 per day, or a total of 540 over the past seven days.

Bot h f i g u re s have slowed their declines in recent weeks but are far from their peak levels in the summer.

The average daily deaths has remained within half a percentage point of where it’s been for the past four days and has decreased 11% in the past two weeks, compared to declines of 18% in each of the two prior two-week periods. Meanwhile, the average number of cases each day hasn’t budged more than 12% from where it was on Sept. 10 — nearly a month ago.

Compared to its peak, California has cut its average daily cases by twothirds and its average daily deaths nearly in half. On July 12, the state reported its highest average number of cases — 9,856 per day — followed by its highest weekly death total about three weeks later, from July 31-Aug. 6, when there were 1,016 deaths from the virus reported around the state, or an average of about 145 per day.

The Bay Area slightly outpaced the modest statewide decline in cases: its 484 cases per day were 16% fewer than two weeks ago.

Santa Clara County widened its regional lead in total cases with another 86 on Monday — the most of any of the Bay Area’s 10 counties, including Santa Cruz. Santa Clara was also one of three counties in the region to report a coronavirus death, along with Contra Costa and Solano, for a total of three in the region Monday.

The only jurisdictions in the state to report more than three deaths from the virus Monday were Los Angeles and Riverside counties, which reported seven fatalities each. The largest and fourth-largest counties in the state, respectively, by population,

LA and Riverside rank Nos. 1 and 3 in COVID-19 death toll.

There have been more than four times as many deaths from COVID-19 in Los Angeles County than in the Bay Area, despite a population about 25% larger. The next two counties, Orange and Riverside, each has slightly less than half the population of the Bay Area but about 20% fewer deaths.

An update to the state’s reopening tiers is due Tuesday afternoon from Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s Secretary of Health and Human Ser v ices. This week’s update will be the first to consider the new health equity metric, which looks at positivity rates in counties’ least healthy communities.

Last week, San Francisco became the first county in the region and the first major city in the state to enter the orange tier, which paved the way for it to permit indoor dining and some other sectors in limited capacities.

Santa Clara County officials said they hope to enter the orange tier in the following update from Ghaly, on Oct. 13; if so, they said, indoor dining and some other sectors could resume limited operations in the county.

As of last week, every county in the Bay Area — except for Sonoma — had advanced into the red tier (though many have opted to reopen slower than the state’s guidelines). Statewide, more counties were in the red tier, which allows for many sectors to reopen at limited capacities, than in the more restrictive purple tier.

In total, there were 18 counties — including Los Angeles — that were still in the purple tier, indicating “widespread” transmission; 22 counties that were in the red tier; 15 mostly rural counties, though also San Francisco, in the orange tier; and three counties in the least restrictive yellow tier.