It’s been more than a month since COVID-19 cases in California, the positivity rate and hospitalizations were as low as they came on Thursday. The deaths, however, continued in large numbers.
Of all the tests conducted in California last week, 7.5% tested positive for COVID-19, averaging approximately 22,150 per day, both figures at their lowest points since the first week of December. according to data collected by this news organization. Meanwhile, fewer Californians are hospitalized with COVID-19 than any other point since the third week of December, which is an estimated two-week lag between cases and hospitalizations. Deaths have traditionally followed the trend of hospitalizations for two or more weeks or so.
On Thursday, the cumulative death toll in California rose to more than 39,000 and 591 fatalities were reported statewide. More than 3,700 Californians lost last week, or an average of about 539 a day, more than almost any other point in the pandemic.
But California’s other metrics are drastically improving.
With 16,251 positive COVID patients hospitalized, California has reduced its active hospitalizations by a quarter of its maximum. The last time there were fewer Californians hospitalized with COVID-19 was on December 17th. About three weeks later, hospitalizations reached their peak, with just under 22,000 hospitalized at the same time on January 6th. During the state’s first wave last summer, there were never 10,000 Californians hospitalized at once.
Cases and the positivity rate in California have dropped even more.
The average daily number in the state exceeded 45,000 on December 22, but rose again near this point on January 10, when positive post-holiday tests increased the daily average to over 44,000. . Since then, California has halved the average daily case, with widespread reductions statewide. The rate of infection per capita in the country’s largest state, which had risen to the top of the state-by-state rankings, has fallen to about 56 daily cases per 100,000 residents, now below 13 more states.
Similarly, the positive test rate in California exceeded 14.3% on January 7 and has since halved by almost half. On Thursday, with 7.5%, the state’s positivity rate fell below its maximum during the first state wave last summer, although it continues to average more than twice as many cases. This week was also the first time the California positivity rate fell below 8%, within the red reopening range, since the day Governor Gavin Newsom announced the regional home stay order, almost two months ago.
In the Bay Area, cases and fatalities continue to be slower than in California as a whole. Of the 591 fatalities in the state on Thursday, 86 reached the Bay Area region, including three double-digit counties: Santa Clara County, where the cumulative count of cases should exceed 100,000 this year. of the week, it reported 36 deaths, the fourth-highest total Thursday in the state. It was followed by 18 in Contra Costa County, where the cumulative death toll rose to 525, and 11 in San Francisco, where the death toll exceeded 300.
Southern California on Thursday accounted for 431 statewide fatalities, or nearly three in four, over the proportion of deaths that has been responsible so far during the deadliest month of the pandemic in California, despite representing just over half the population of the state. Seven of the county’s top ten deaths came Thursday in Southern California: 210 in Los Angeles, 69 in San Diego, 55 in Riverside, 30 in San Bernardino, 29 in Orange, 15 in Ventura and 14 in Imperial.
Each region has reduced the infection rate by about half compared to two weeks ago, the two main declines in the state. But in the Bay Area, there were about 32 cases per day per 100,000 residents last week, while the rate in Southern California was more than double that of approximately 67.5 per 100,000.