California’s COVID-19 rates start to rise again amid winter ‘tripledemic’ fears
Coronavirus transmission is showing early signs of trending upward again in California, as experts warn of a potential “tripledemic” — spikes in COVID-19, the flu and respiratory syncytial virus — this winter.
The California Department of Public Health in a weekly update Thursday reported the daily case rate for COVID-19 at 6.1 per 100,000 residents.
That’s down 4% from the previous week, but the rate of decline has slowed: the case rate decreased by 6% in the previous week-to-week window, and by 15% in the one before that.
California also is now conducting only about 72,000 tests a day, which is its lowest testing volume since the first three months of the pandemic. The state was processing more than 250,000 daily lab tests as recently as early June.
As a result, statewide positivity is resurging. CDPH reported positivity at 4.5% as of Thursday, up from 4.1% last week.
Hospitalizations with COVID-19 are also creeping back up, reported Thursday by CDPH at 1,700 virus-positive patients, up from 1,514 nine days earlier for a 12% spike.
Virus levels also have increased in the wastewater for some parts of California. In Sacramento, COVID-19 activity spiked in late October to the city’s highest point since early September, according to data collected by the Stanford-based Sewage Coronavirus Alert Network research project.
Over the course of October, virus levels in Sacramento increased by roughly 45%, the Stanford data show.
California’s latest positivity and hospital numbers remain well below the peaks of more than 16% and nearly 5,000 in hospital beds in July, when the BA.5 subvariant of omicron took over as the dominant strain of the virus during a summer wave.
But the recent growth comes as a new family of omicron subvariants starts to make up a rapidly increasing portion of cases, and as colder weather starts to drive more people to gather indoors.
The newly discovered BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 variants made up a combined 27.1% of cases nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a weekly update last Friday, up from 16.5% the previous week and from 9.4% two weeks earlier.
A wave recorded in the United Kingdom has shown signs of easing in recent weeks, with infections, hospitalizations and deaths all falling after about a monthlong surge from early September through early October.
Surges in the U.K. and other parts of Europe often have been a bellwether for U.S. surges throughout the pandemic, usually preceding the latter by roughly a month.
However, U.S. vaccination rates, including California, remain well below those of the U.K.
CDPH reports that 72% have received their primary series of a COVID-19 vaccine, compared to 89% reported by U.K. national health officials. Only 59% of eligible Californians have had at least one booster dose, compared to 70% in the U.K.
Health officials have said the recently launched “bivalent” booster doses provide protection against omicron subvariants as well as earlier versions of the virus that causes COVID-19.
But as of last week, CDPH reported only 11% of those eligible for a bivalent booster have received one.
Sacramento-area numbers by county
Sacramento County’s latest case rate is 6.5 per 100,000 residents, state health officials said in Thursday’s update, an 11% decrease from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Sacramento County were treating 94 virus patients Wednesday, state data updated Thursday show, down from 95 one week earlier. The intensive care increased to 14 from 13.
Placer County’s latest case rate is 4.8 per 100,000 residents, a 23% increase from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Placer County were treating 52 virus patients Wednesday, up from 51 one week earlier. The ICU total increased to five from four.
Yolo County’s latest case rate is 4.7 per 100,000 residents, a 23% decrease from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Yolo County were treating one virus patient Wednesday, down from four a week earlier. The ICU total decreased to zero from one.
El Dorado County’s latest case rate is 5.7 per 100,000 residents, an 18% increase from one week earlier.
Hospitals in El Dorado County were treating three virus patients Wednesday, up from two a week earlier. The ICU total increased to one from zero.
Sutter County’s latest case rate is 4.2 per 100,000 residents, up 3% from last week, and Yuba County’s is 8.6 per 100,000, up 17%, state health officials reported Thursday.
The only hospital in Yuba County, which serves the Yuba-Sutter bicounty area, was treating no virus patients Wednesday, down from eight a week earlier. The ICU total decreased to zero from one.
This story was originally published November 3, 2022 at 11:30 AM with the headline "California’s COVID-19 rates start to rise again amid winter ‘tripledemic’ fears."
