California’s COVID-19 case rate falls to a four-month low; new vaccine boosters launch
Having improved steadily for the past couple of months, some of California’s key coronavirus metrics have fallen to their lowest levels since spring, as global health leaders also express some optimism about the trajectory of the pandemic.
The statewide daily case rate for COVID-19 has fallen to 12.1 per 100,000 residents, California Department of Public Health officials said in a Thursday update, down 30% in the past week for the lowest rate recorded since late April.
Test positivity is 6.2%, California’s lowest point since late May and down from 7.3% last week.
The most recent surge, fueled by the contagious BA.4 and BA.5 sister subvariants of omicron, peaked around mid-July in California at a daily case rate of about 48 per 100,000 with test positivity at 16.2%.
California health officials beginning this month reduced their COVID-19 case data updates to a weekly basis, down from twice a week.
CDPH on Thursday reported 2,580 patients in hospital beds with confirmed COVID-19, including 316 in intensive care units. Both are down from respective peaks of about 4,800 and 570 in mid-July.
Sacramento County had 130 virus patients in hospital beds, Thursday’s state data show, its fewest since late May.
Virus levels recorded in wastewater also continue to drop. Data from the Sewage Coronavirus Alert Network, a Stanford-based research effort encompassing water treatment sites in the capital region and Bay Area, recently showed the level of COVID-19 virus being shed in Sacramento wastewater at its lowest point since the first week of May.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, in a virtual news conference Wednesday said the “end is in sight” for the coronavirus pandemic, though it is not yet over.
U.S. federal health agencies earlier this month authorized the use of “bivalent” COVID-19 vaccine boosters – doses that target the original strains of the virus as well as the omicron strains, known as BA.2, BA.4 and BA.5 lineages, that have dominated nationwide for months.
Rollout of those booster doses is underway in California, where CDPH reports 72% of all residents have been vaccinated with an initial series but that only 59% are vaccinated and boosted. That works out to more than 12 million Californians who are vaccinated but not boosted.
California has confirmed 94,747 virus deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, with a recent seven-day average of 28 fatalities reported as of Thursday. The state peaked during the summer surge at just over 50 deaths per day, and January’s omicron surge topped out at about 270.
Sacramento-area numbers by county
Sacramento County’s latest case rate is 11.2 per 100,000 residents, state health officials said in Tuesday’s update, a 31% decrease from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Sacramento County were treating 130 virus patients Wednesday, state data updated Thursday show, down from 168 one week earlier. The intensive care unit decreased to 17 from 27.
▪ Placer County’s latest case rate is 7.9 per 100,000 residents, a 30% decrease from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Placer County were treating 63 virus patients Wednesday, up from 44 one week earlier. The ICU total increased to seven from four.
▪ Yolo County’s latest case rate is 8.1 per 100,000 residents, a 33% decrease from one week earlier.
Hospitals in Yolo County were treating six virus patients Wednesday, up from three a week earlier. The ICU total increased to three from two.
▪ El Dorado County’s latest case rate is 6.5 per 100,000 residents, a 32% decrease from one week earlier.
Hospitals in El Dorado County were treating seven virus patients Wednesday, up from two a week earlier. The ICU total increased to two from one.
▪ Sutter County’s latest case rate is 15.4 per 100,000 residents, down 30% from last week, and Yuba County’s is 15.9 per 100,000, down 30%, state health officials reported Tuesday.
The only hospital in Yuba County, which serves the Yuba-Sutter bicounty area, was treating five virus patients Wednesday, down from seven one week earlier. The ICU total remained at zero.
This story was originally published September 15, 2022 at 9:57 AM with the headline "California’s COVID-19 case rate falls to a four-month low; new vaccine boosters launch."
