It has been well over a month since California’s cases of COVID-19, positivity rate and hospitalizations were all as low as they reached Thursday. Deaths, however, continued in large numbers.
Of all the tests in California over the past week, 7.5% have come back positive for COVID-19, for an average of approximately 22,150 per day, both figures at their lowest points since the first week of December, according to data compiled by this news organization. Meanwhile, fewer Californians are hospitalized with COVID-19 than any point since the third week of December, representing the estimated two-week lag between cases and hospitalizations. Deaths have traditionally followed the trend in hospitalizations by another two or so weeks.
On Thursday, California’s cumulative death toll rose to more than 39,000 with another 591 fatalities reported around the state. More than 3,700 Californians have perished in the past week, or an average of about 539 per day, more than nearly any other point of the pandemic.
But California’s other metrics are improving dramatically.
With 16,251 COVID-positive patients hospitalized, California has cut its active hospitalizations by a quarter from their peak. The last time there were fewer Californians hospitalized with COVID-19 was Dec. 17. About three weeks later, hospitalizations hit their apex, with just below 22,000 hospitalized at once on Jan. 6. During the state’s first wave last summer, there were never 10,000 Californians hospitalized at one time.
California’s cases and positivity rate have fallen by even more.
Average daily cases in the state topped out at approximately 45,000 on Dec. 22 but had climbed back near that point again by Jan. 10, when the post-holiday positive tests increased the daily average to over 44,000. Since then, California has halved its average daily cases, with widespread reductions around the state. The per-capita infection rate in the nation’s largest state, which had climbed to the top of state-by-state leaderboards, has fallen to about 56 daily cases per 100,000 residents, now lower than 13 other states.
Similarly, the rate of tests to come back positive in California topped out at 14.3% on Jan. 7 and has since been cut nearly in half. At 7.5% on Thursday, the state’s positivity rate has fallen below its peak during state’s first wave last summer, even though it is still averaging more than twice as many cases. This week was also the first time California’s positivity rate had fallen below 8%, within the range of the red reopening tier, since the day Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the regional stay-at-home order, almost two months ago.
In the Bay Area, cases and fatalities continue to come at a lesser rate than California as a whole. Of the 591 statewide fatalities Thursday, 86 came in the Bay Area region, including three counties with double-digit death tolls: Santa Clara County, where the cumulative case count should cross 100,000 this weekend, reported 36 new deaths, the fourth-largest total in the state Thursday. It was followed by 18 in Contra Costa County, where the cumulative death toll grew to 525, and 11 in San Francisco, where the death toll surpassed 300.
Southern California accounted for 431 of the statewide fatalities Thursday, or nearly three in every four, about the proportion of the deaths it has been responsible for so far throughout California’s deadliest month of the pandemic, despite making up just over half the state’s population. Seven of the 10 largest county death tolls Thursday came in Southern California: 210 in Los Angeles, 69 in San Diego, 55 in Riverside, 30 in San Bernardino, 29 in Orange, 15 in Ventura and 14 in Imperial.
Each region has cut its infection rate by about half from two weeks ago, the two leading decreases in the state. But in the Bay Area, there were about 32 daily cases per 100,000 residents over the past week, while the rate in Southern California was more than twice that: about 67.5 per 100,000.
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