The explosive increase in COVID-19 in California continued over the weekend, as positive tests returned to record numbers, hospital admissions rose to another new height and fewer ICU beds were available than before.
Although only a quarter of the state’s 58 districts have released updates, the county health department reported 24,588 new COVID-19 cases Sunday, according to data compiled by the news organization. More than 222,000 new cases in the past week – an average of more than 31,700 a day – have been tested positively by more Californians in the last seven days than in October and September.
In the past two weeks, the average daily number of cases in California has increased by 127%. Hospitals are already feeling the effects of the rise in cases that began about six weeks ago with a 76% increase in COVID-positive patients over the past two weeks.
More Californians than any other point of infection have already been hospitalized with the virus, and that number is likely to increase in the coming weeks. On Saturday, the active number rose to 13,047, the highest point of the epidemic, according to the state’s latest data. State health officials say recently admitted patients may reflect infections that occurred two to three weeks ago, while California now reports new cases at half the rate.
If a small number of cases diagnosed in the past week have reached the point of hospitalization, this could indicate a huge influx of patients on top of already registered statistics that reduce capacity in some parts of the state. State health officials estimate that about 12% of cases require hospital admission, which will translate the volume of last week’s cases into more than 26,000 additional hospitals in the coming weeks. According to the latest data from the state, 20% of ICUs – at the lower end of health officials ’estimates – represent more than 5,300 new ICU patients, when fewer than 1,500 beds are available.
Across California, according to the Department of Public Health, ICUs are 92.6% efficient, but the Bay Area is slightly better: 16.7% of ICU beds here are open, well above the government-mandated 15% threshold. The region has already implemented new regulations, which will be triggered by falling below that number.
In all San Joaquin Valley, ICU beds were not available on Saturday, although capacity increased to 1.5%, the lowest in five regions of the state as of Sunday. In Southern California, ICU efficiency fell to 4.2% on Sunday, while in the Greater Sacramento region, capacity increased to 15.1%. Restrictions will not be lifted in any region until early December 28.
As more severe cases of the virus are hospitalized and stuffed into ICUs, more and more Californians are becoming extinct from the virus. With 1,107 deaths in the past week – about 158 per day on average – California has recorded more deaths than the other seven days of the epidemic.
On Sunday, 71 new viruses infected around California, largely caused by the southern part of the state. Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego and San Bernardino counties had 62 deaths Sunday. In the Valley of San Joaquin, Stanislas County announced five new deaths and Kern County two; On the Central Coast, two deaths occurred in Montreal County.
The only deaths recorded in the Bay Area in Alameda County on Saturday, Santa Clara County set a daily record with 2,029 new cases on Sunday.
Orange County reported 3,121 new cases Sunday, while San Bernardino County broke its daily record on Saturday. In San Bernardino County, the per capita infection rate over the past week has been higher than in all 50 states, while in Los Angeles County, the rate is higher than in all but Rhode Island and Tennessee.
California now ranks 15th for personal infections in the past week – about 79.1 per 100,000 residents a day – as recently as 39th two weeks ago. The rate in the Bay Area – 42.4 cases per 100,000 – is lower for each state, but also for Oregon, Maine, Vermont and Hawaii.
Nationwide, more than 16.3 million Americans are infected with COVID-19, more than 210,000 a day in the past week, according to data compiled by the New York Times. In California, the total number of infections is approximately 1.6 million, while the total death toll here exceeds 21,000.
The U.S. death toll was expected to cross 300,000 on Monday. According to the Times, after Sunday, it was 299,328, with an average of more than 2,400 Americans dying from the virus every day in the past week.