The macabre milestone, as reported by Johns Hopkins University, was not entirely unexpected in a state with 40 million residents, but its impressive speed. The state only reached 2 million cases reported on December 24th.
The first case of coronavirus in California was confirmed last January 25th. It took 292 days to reach one million infections on November 11 and 44 days to exceed 2 million.
The number of cases in California is also well ahead of other large states. Texas had more than 2 million and Florida exceeded 1.5 million.
The state has recorded more than 33,600 deaths related to COVID-19.
The rise in cases that began last autumn affected hospitals and especially intensive care units, as a percentage of those infected (typically estimated at around 12% by public health officials) are put on hold. sick enough weeks later to need medical attention.
On average, California has recorded about 500 deaths and 40,000 new cases a day over the past two weeks.
Officials warn that a slight downward trend in hospitalizations could be reversed when the full impact of New Year’s Eve collection transmissions is noticed.
The state relies on mass vaccines to reduce the number of infections, but there have been problems with vaccination. On Sunday, Dr. Erica S. Pan, the state epidemiologist, urged providers to stop using a large amount of Modern vaccine because some people needed medical treatment for possible severe allergic reactions.
More than 330,000 doses of batch 41L20A arrived in California between Jan. 5 and 12 and were distributed to 287 suppliers, he said.
In Northern California, Stanislaus County health officials responded by announcing that they would not hold vaccination clinics until further notice.
“Out of the extreme abundance of precaution and we also recognize the extremely limited supply of vaccines, we recommend that suppliers use other available vaccine inventories” pending completion of an investigation by state officials, Modern, Control Centers of the U.S. Disease and Food Federation and Drug Administration, Pan said in a statement.
Less than ten people, who received the vaccine at the same site in the community, needed medical attention for a 24-hour period, Pan said. No other similar clusters were found.
Pan did not specify the number of cases involved or where they occurred.
Six San Diego health workers had allergic reactions to the vaccines they received at a mass vaccination center on Jan. 14. The site was temporarily closed and is now using other vaccines, KTGV-TV reported.
Modern in a statement said the company “is unaware of comparable adverse events from other vaccination centers that may have administered vaccines from the same batch.”
The CDC has said COVID-19 vaccines can cause side effects for a few days that include fever, chills, headache, bloating or tiredness, “which are normal signs your body is protecting.”
However, severe reactions are extremely rare. Pan said in a vaccine similar to Modern, the rate of anaphylaxis, in which a reaction of the immune system can block breathing and cause a drop in blood pressure, was about 1 in 100,000.
The announcement came as California counties continue to advocate for more COVID-19 vaccine as the state tries to reduce the infection rate, which has resulted in a record number of hospitalizations and deaths.
California has sent about 3.2 million doses of the vaccine (requiring two doses for full vaccination) to local health departments and health care systems, the Department of Public Health reported Monday. state.
Only about 1.4 million of these doses have been administered, or about 40%.
To date, the state has vaccinated less than 2,500 people per 100,000 residents, a rate that falls well below the national average, according to federal data.
Although Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that anyone 65 or older would be eligible to start receiving the vaccine, Los Angeles County and a few others have said they do not have enough doses to vaccinate so many people and who first focus on inoculating health care. workers and the most vulnerable seniors living in care homes.
The mortality rate for COVID-19 in Los Angeles County, the most populous in the country and an epicenter of the state pandemic, reaches about one person every six minutes.
On Sunday, the South Coast Air Quality Management District suspended some pollution control limits on the number of cremations for at least ten days to address the backlog of bodies in hospitals and funeral homes.
“The current mortality rate is more than double that of pre-pandemic years,” the agency said.
In addition, California is experimenting with new, possibly more transmissible, forms of COVID-19.
The state health department announced Sunday that an L452R variant of the virus is increasingly appearing in the genetic sequencing of COVID-19 test samples from several counties.
The variant was first identified last year in California and other states and countries, but has been identified more frequently since November and in several major outbreaks in northern Santa Clara County, the department.
In general, the variant has been found in at least a dozen counties. In some places, tests have found the variant in a quarter of the sequenced samples, said Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist and professor of laboratory medicine at the University of California at San Francisco.
However, not all test samples receive genetic sequencing to identify variants, so their frequency was not immediate.
Health officials said it was related to a Christmas outbreak at Kaiser Permanent San Jose that infected at least 89 staff members and patients, and killed a receptionist. The outbreak has been attributed to an employee who visited the hospital emergency room wearing an inflatable Christmas tree inflatable dress with air.
The variant is different from another mutation, B117, which was first reported in the UK and appears to spread much more easily, although it does not appear to make people sicker.
This variant has already appeared in San Diego County and Los Angeles County, he announced over the weekend that he had detected his first case.