Coronavirus updates: 49 dead and 2,400 infected in California; first child fatality
As the worldwide infection total has exceeded 400,000 and the U.S. death toll is rapidly rising, the coronavirus is bringing about even more dire and unprecedented measures, especially by governments in the pandemic’s hot zones.
That includes California, where there are now more than 2,400 confirmed COVID-19 cases and at least 49 deaths as of midday Tuesday, according to a Sacramento Bee survey of numbers released by counties’ public health departments.
Los Angeles County announced three fatalities for a total of 11 as of early Tuesday afternoon, and disclosed the first confirmed coronavirus death of a child in California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced a dramatically higher need for hospital capacity: The state is now projected to require at least an additional 50,000 hospital beds to handle the surge of coronavirus patients, Newsom said during a Monday evening news conference. That’s a substantial increase from a figure of about 20,000 given late last week.
The new number comes based on dynamic modeling that pulls numbers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, data from California and other states, and additional modeling from Johns Hopkins University, Newsom said.
Newsom said the state’s existing hospitals, which currently have 75,000 beds, have agreed to expand their capacity by 40 percent – adding another 30,000 beds by way of outbuildings on existing campuses and setting up tents in parking lots. Another approximately 5,000 beds will come from the Navy medical ship Mercy, three hospitals the state is leasing and eight field medical centers being sent by the federal government.
The state will start looking at convention centers, fairgrounds, hotels and motels and skilled nursing facilities to close the gap of roughly 15,000 beds, Newsom said Monday.
Worldwide data being tracked by Johns Hopkins shows the United States has confirmed more than 52,000 cases of the coronavirus as of 2 p.m. Pacific time Tuesday. Almost exactly half that total, just over 25,000 infections, are in New York state, where more than 200 of the nation’s nearly 600 deaths have been reported.
El Dorado confirms 3rd case, first of community transmission
El Dorado County confirmed its third coronavirus case Tuesday, which health authorities said was the jurisdiction’s first known community transmitted case.
The county in a news release said there is now one case of COVID-19 that is travel-related, one case that was transmitted through “direct contact” involving a known patient and one for which the source is unknown, meaning it was spread in the community.
“We have prepared for the identification of this third type of transmission in El Dorado County and it underscores the importance of staying at home,” county public heath officer Dr. Nancy Williams said in a statement.
“The virus is here in El Dorado County, and it’s more important than ever not to travel to places outside the homes except for essential purposes. And when people are conducting essential services and activities, it’s critical to practice social distancing and properly washing your hands.”
El Dorado was last within the four-county region — after composed of Sacramento, Placer and Yolo counties — to report a confirmed case.
El Dorado’s first came last Friday, when the county disclosed in a news release that a female resident traveled to an unspecified county in Central California and “was visiting sick family members” when symptoms arose. The woman stayed in that county and had not yet returned to El Dorado County as of last Friday. It was not specified whether the family members she was visiting were believed to have been suffering from COVID-19 or another illness.
Sac Metro firefighter tests positive
A Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District firefighter has tested positive for coronavirus, agency officials confirmed Tuesday. The firefighter is the first known emergency responder in the Sacramento region to contract the virus that causes COVID-19.
With firefighters often on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, Metro Fire said last week they had distributed masks, gowns and gloves to staff to better protect them while responding to calls.
And while the Metro firefighter is the first to test positive, local firefighters have responded to situations where they may have been exposed to the virus for over a month. Three Rocklin firefighters were quarantined earlier this month after they were exposed to a resident who had contracted the virus while on a cruise ship. The resident later died, but the firefighters were cleared for duty March 12 after not showing symptoms following 14 days of voluntary home isolation.
Sacramento County evictions still enforceable by law
The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors in a Tuesday meeting passed a non-enforceable resolution that would temporarily ban evictions against tenants affected by the coronavirus pandemic, but failed to pass an emergency ordinance on the same subject that would give the ban the force of law.
Instead, the board is expected to convene Wednesday for a special meeting to consider the same emergency ordinance as a regular ordinance, which would require a simple majority. That regular ordinance would also temporarily ban evictions against tenants affected by the coronavirus pandemic, but wouldn’t take effect until May 1.
Sacramento County’s proposed ordinance is modeled after the one passed by the city of Sacramento last week, and gives tenants in unincorporated communities who can prove they’ve been financially impacted by the virus up to 120 days, or about four months, after the state of emergency declaration ends to pay deferred rent.
The resolutions are being introduced following last week’s countywide and then Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide orders for all residents to stay at home unless absolutely necessary, a measure to curb spread of the coronavirus that has had devastating impacts on the economy.
“These are unusual circumstances,” District 1 Supervisor Phil Serna said during the meeting. “I don’t see how we can simultaneously order people to stay at home if they find themselves in a position where they become homeless and therefore expose themselves more to the virus.”
All California jury trials suspended due to coronavirus
In another unprecedented decision announced Monday evening, California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye issued a statewide order saying jury trials in all counties’ superior courts are suspended for the next 60 days.
“Courts cannot comply with these health restrictions and continue to operate as they have in the past,” Cantil-Sakauye said in a news release. “Many court facilities in California are ill-equipped to effectively allow the social distancing and other public health requirements required to protect people involved in court proceedings and prevent the further spread of COVID-19.”
In addition to courthouses lacking uniform guidelines in maintaining six feet of social distancing between people, Cantil-Sakauye said the statewide stay-at-home mandate and its restrictions “have also made it nearly impossible for courts to assemble juries.”
Newsom orders parking lots closed at state recreational areas
Also during Monday’s news conference, Newsom pointed to circulating images and reports of crowded beaches and other outdoor recreational areas in recent days, which showed a failure by at least some of the public to follow social distancing component of his stay-at-home order.
In response, Newsom announced that parking lots at state recreational areas will be closed.
“We need to help you help yourself,” he said.
Trump to postpone Real ID deadline
President Donald Trump, during a news conference just before Newsom’s remarks, said the Oct. 1 deadline for Americans to obtain a Real ID will be postponed.
Under the original deadline, those flying domestically in the U.S. would need either a passport or the new Real ID card to do so.
In California, millions of drivers had yet to apply for a Real ID, a process that has to be done in person at a DMV office, which sparked concern in a time when social distancing guidelines are being mandated or strongly encouraged due to the highly contagious coronavirus.
“The California DMV is encouraged by the president’s remarks indicating that the federal government will extend the enforcement date for Real ID,” said a statement from Steve Gordon, director of California’s DMV. “This would relieve the urgency for people to visit local DMV offices and bolster the state’s efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
Trump did not announce a new deadline.
Latest in Sacramento: Parking tickets, rumor control
Sacramento County as of Monday reported 88 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and the county’s fourth death due to the virus. The new total for infections is an increase of 35 from last Friday, when 53 cases had been reported.
A free drive-up coronavirus testing program will launch in Sacramento on Tuesday, sponsored by Google’s parent company Alphabet.
The initiative, called Project Baseline, is a website screening program that was launched in the Bay Area a week ago. Sacramento County residents experiencing mild to moderate symptoms and who are age 18 or older can now fill out Project Baseline’s “COVID-19 screener” to see if they are qualified for in-person testing.
The project is a clinical research project, conducted in cooperation with several universities. Results are texted to participants. The physical locations of the testing site or sites have not been shared publicly.
Meanwhile, the city of Sacramento has stopped giving out parking tickets for certain minor infractions but is continuing to do so for other violations.
As of Tuesday morning, overdue meters or a lack of the proper permit when parking on city streets will probably get you a warning instead of a fine, but officials are continuing to ticket drivers for “city services” day-of-the-week violations, which impact things like garbage pickup and street sweeping. Those come with a $52.50 citation.
Parking enforcement are still giving citations for safety violations like parking in disabled parking areas, in red zones, in bike lanes or too close to a fire hydrant.
Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn in a Monday video news release made it clear that at this time, law enforcement are not initiating traffic stops to enforce the statewide or countywide stay-at-home orders.
Hahn said no officers within the county are “stopping individuals solely for the purpose to determine if they are essential workers or if they have some sort of paperwork. Our officers are simply not doing that.”
County leaders have said previously that the intent of Sacramento’s stay-home order is not to cite or arrest anyone, but to have the ability to require bars to close and restaurants to only serve take-out or delivery food.
Police also reminded the public that rumors circulating about a government-issued curfew in effect are false.
Job losses and California’s economy
The state could lose about 600,000 and the Sacramento region about 33,000 private-sector jobs due to COVID-19 by the summer, each representing more than 4 percent of the total workforce.
That’s according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, which used estimates from Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank and applied the nationwide economic impact to states’ unemployment numbers, also taking into account states’ proportion of leisure, hospitality and retail sectors.
The analysis was completed before Gov. Gavin Newsom issued his shelter in place order last Thursday, and does not seasonally adjust or account for telecommuting, making the estimates rough ones.
The Bee, applying the assumptions from the Institute’s analysis to counties and regions in California, found that the analysis would translate to nearly 160,000 private jobs lost by June in Los Angeles County; more than 110,000 in the San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose metropolitan areas; and almost 33,000 in the Sacramento metro area.
Real estate market impact
In an unprecedented move, California’s main real estate sales association has advised agents not to enter homes and not even meet face-to-face with clients for fear of spreading the virus.
That guidance by the California Association of Realtors appears likely to lead to a near shutdown of the state’s resale housing industry that could last as long as the virus continues spreading in California.
Sacramento-area home sales agents interviewed by The Sacramento Bee say most are abiding by the request, which was made after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Thursday statewide order to cease nonessential business during what officials are calling a “shelter at home” period.
Industry watchers say they counted just 20 open houses around the Sacramento region on Sunday. Typically, there would be several hundred - or up to 1,000, realtor Tim Collom said.
More than 340 sellers took their homes off the market in the last 10 days in the Sacramento region, some postponing their sales efforts for a few weeks or months, others dropping plans entirely to sell their houses, according to real data and trends
That’s an estimated 11 percent of what had been an already low number of homes on the market in the Sacramento region.
Lundquist, an appraiser, said he no longer will go through homes to conduct appraisals. Instead, he will attempt to do appraisals via other analysis methods.
Erin Stumpf, a director with the Sacramento Association of Realtors, said she is still working on closing active deals, but will no longer go into a house or send a client into a house. She said she sees it as a violation of the industry’s code of ethics.
“If we engage in physically meeting people and taking them into somebody’s home, that is potentially risky behavior, especially if it is an occupied residence,” Stumpf said. “We should cease person-to-person contact. Our clients should be staying at home. We should be staying at home.”
Latest worldwide, US coronavirus numbers
According to Johns Hopkins University, there have been more than 417,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported worldwide as of 6 p.m. Pacific Time.
While China’s infection total has been stagnant at just over 81,000, Italy has exploded up to 69,000 and the United States currently stands third in the world with more than 50,000. More than 6,800 have died in Italy, compared with about 600 so far across the U.S.
Next on the global list are Spain at almost 40,000 infections and 2,800 dead; Germany at 32,000 and close to 150 dead; Iran at almost 25,000 and over 1,900 dead; and France with about 20,000 and 860 dead.
Within the United States, the major hotspots remain New York state, with over 25,000 infections and more than 180 dead including 125 fatalities in New York City; New Jersey (2,800 cases, 27 fatalities); Washington (2,200 infected, 111 dead); and California, which according to a Tuesday’s survey count by The Bee had at least than 2,318 cases and at least 45 fatalities.
Michigan, Illinois, Florida, Georgia and Louisiana all have between 1,000 and 1,500 cases, the Johns Hopkins data map shows.
Reminder: What is COVID-19? How is the coronavirus spread?
Coronavirus is spread through contact between people within six feet of each other, especially through coughing and sneezing that expels respiratory droplets that land in the mouths or noses of people nearby. The CDC says it’s possible to catch the disease COVID-19 by touching something that has the virus on it, and then touching your own face, “but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”
Symptoms of the virus that causes COVID-19 include fever, cough and shortness of breath, which may occur two days to two weeks after exposure. Most develop only mild symptoms, but some people develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia, which can be fatal. The disease is especially dangerous to the elderly and others with weaker immune systems.
This story was originally published March 24, 2020 at 7:57 AM with the headline "Coronavirus updates: 49 dead and 2,400 infected in California; first child fatality."
