SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – State orders to stay at home will remain in effect in the Bay Area until at least Jan. 8, with possibilities to expand based on the capacity projections of the intensive care unit , state health officials reported Saturday.
The order to stay at home in the state is activated when the average ICU capacity of a region falls below 15 percent. The current ICU capacity in the bay area is 5.1 percent, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The San Joaquin Valley, Southern California, and Greater Sacramento regions continue under home-based orders because their four-week capacity projections in the ICU do not meet the capacity to leave the order. , said the department.
Available capacity in the Sacramento region is 6.9 percent, while the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California region is down to 0%, according to the department.
The health department said Saturday in California that there are 2,345,909 confirmed cases so far, though the numbers may not represent a real day-to-day change, as notification of test results may be delayed. On Friday, 53,341 recently confirmed cases were registered and the 7-day positivity rate is 14%, while the 14-day positivity rate is 12.6%, the department said.
There were 33,391,442 tests performed in California, an increase of 333,131 during the previous 24-hour reporting period.
As the number of cases continues to increase in California, so will the total number of people who will have serious outcomes. There have been 26,357 deaths from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
As of Wednesday, a total of 335,983 doses of vaccine have been administered statewide. As of Monday, a total of 1,762,900 vaccine doses have been distributed to local health departments and health care systems that have facilities in several counties.
SIGNS OF HOPE
With December dominated by falling ICU capacity and signs of a coronavirus surge over the holidays, it was easy to miss some good news: a post-Thanksgiving wave finally ran out of steam.
“So we’ve seen some softening of the rate of increase in our cases,” said Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County Health Officer, just before Christmas.
“It will take a week or so for everything to be resolved,” said UCSF epidemiologist George Rutherford. “I think just before Christmas we started seeing a bathroom, which was good and we saw it through several indicators.”
Whether this positive trend has continued or not is now a bit difficult to say. Holidays and weekends have reduced testing and reduced reporting.
“I think things are going in the right direction,” Rutherford says. “The question is whether there has been any damage to these trends in the new year. We won’t know until we know.”
Southern California, however, is a different story: 20,000 new cases in Los Angeles on Friday, with a test positivity rate of more than 21%.
“You know, there’s one interesting thing that’s repeating itself, which is this variant British variety that has been found in San Diego in several cases,” Rutherford explained. “The question that is now circulating is whether this may be differences in strains that cause more disease in Southern California. I think it’s a tremendously simple explanation, based on 5 cases, of 20,000 … but it’s something that needs to be studied.” .
Back in the bay area, improving the number would be just that: an improvement since early December. Real progress would still be far away.
“At some point we will be able to get out because a lot of people have been vaccinated,” Rutherford said. “I think we need to be in our game for a few more months until we get the vaccines firmly in place.”
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