California’s COVID-19 infection and hospital rates drop, but state’s death toll passes 95,000
As the calendar flips from summer to fall, California’s coronavirus numbers appear to be continuing a long and steady trend of improvement, with key transmission and hospitalization metrics having now declined for about two straight months.
The California Department of Public Health in a weekly update Thursday reported the latest case rate for COVID-19 at 11 per 100,000 residents, a 12% decrease from the previous week.
The statewide test positivity rate fell to 5%, down from 6% last week, for the lowest positivity since the week ending May 16.
In the state’s most recent surge, which took root around the start of April as contagious offshoots of the omicron subvariant began to dominate new cases, the daily case rate peaked at about 50 per 100,000, and positivity rose as high as 16.2%. Both peaks came in mid-July.
Hospitalizations with the virus are also falling. CDPH on Thursday reported 2,115 patients in hospital beds with confirmed COVID-19, an 18% decrease compared to last week and the state’s lowest tally since late May, with 285 now in intensive care units, down 10% in the past week.
In late July, COVID-19 hospitalizations peaked at more than 4,800 concurrent patients including more than 570 in ICUs.
U.S. health officials in recent weeks launched a new booster campaign: updated “bivalent” vaccine doses designed to protect against omicron subvariants as well as earlier strains of the virus that causes COVID-19 were cleared by federal health officials at the end of August, rolling out to most providers early this month.
California’s all-time death toll from COVID-19 passed 95,000 with Thursday’s update, officially reported at 95,009.
The latest daily average is 26 deaths per day, the state’s lowest since mid-June and down from about 50 daily fatalities in late July. By comparison, the state tallied about 270 daily deaths at the height of the original omicron surge this January and close to 700 daily deaths in January 2020, before vaccines were widely available.
The state has reported more than 10.3 million lab-confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
Sacramento-area numbers by county
Sacramento County’s latest case rate is 10.3 per 100,000 residents, state health officials said in Thursday’s update, a 9% decrease from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Sacramento County were treating 118 virus patients Wednesday, state data updated Thursday show, down from 130 one week earlier. The intensive care unit remained at 17.
Placer County’s latest case rate is 7.1 per 100,000 residents, a 15% decrease from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Placer County were treating 53 virus patients Wednesday, down from 63 one week earlier. The ICU total decreased to five from seven.
Yolo County’s latest case rate is 7.5 per 100,000 residents, an 11% decrease from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Yolo County were treating seven virus patients Wednesday, up from six a week earlier. The ICU total decreased to two from three.
El Dorado County’s latest case rate is 6.7 per 100,000 residents, a 2% increase from one week earlier.
Hospitals in El Dorado County were treating two virus patients Wednesday, down from seven a week earlier. The ICU total decreased to one from two.
Sutter County’s latest case rate is 14.5 per 100,000 residents, down 8% from last week, and Yuba County’s is 15.5 per 100,000, down 4%, state health officials reported Tuesday.
The only hospital in Yuba County, which serves the Yuba-Sutter bicounty area, was treating four virus patients Wednesday, down from five one week earlier. The ICU total remained at zero.
This story was originally published September 22, 2022 at 10:27 AM with the headline "California’s COVID-19 infection and hospital rates drop, but state’s death toll passes 95,000."
