When Gov. Gavin Newsom revoked California’s stay-at-home order on Monday, COVID-19 hospital admissions in the state continued to plummet and average daily cases remained near the trough in months.
California hospitals have been losing an average of 300 patients a day since they peaked just over two weeks ago and recently dropped to 17,432 active hospital admissions on Sundays, down 20% in the past two weeks. The percentage of positive tests has also dropped dramatically, to 8% of all tests in the past week, after that figure was 14% two weeks ago. With about 28,180 new cases per day in the past week, California has, on average, the fewest infections since the second week of December, according to data collected by this news organization.
However, California is still in the middle of the pandemic’s deadliest period. With a monthly death toll of more than 11,500 and six days to go, January is on track to become not only the deadliest month of the California pandemic, but twice as well. On Monday, the cumulative death toll in California grew to 37,499 – more than any state except New York – with 434 newly reported fatalities. That brought the seven-day total to 3,766, or an average of 538 per day, surpassing a period earlier this month as the deadliest seven days of the state’s pandemic.
Over the course of the pandemic, the Bay Area has been able to fend off the massive fatalities in the southern part of the state. On Monday, however, Santa Clara County recorded the third highest death toll in the state – 53, including delayed data from the weekend – the highest number reported on a single day of the pandemic. Elsewhere in the region, there were another 16 deaths, across Santa Cruz, Solano, Napa, Marin, and Alameda counties.
While about one in five Californians live in the Bay Area, only about one in 10 deaths from COVID-19 have occurred in the region. Southern California, which makes up just over half of the state population, has caused more than two in three fatalities in the state since the start of the pandemic – and an even greater proportion in the past month, nearly three in four .
The deaths reported Monday pushed the Santa Clara County total above 1,200, the highest death toll in the Bay Area and number six in the state. The five counties ahead of him are all located in Southern California, led by Los Angeles County, where more than 15,000 residents have died from COVID-19.
In a rare event, Los Angeles County reported 10 fewer deaths than Santa Clara County Monday, but two other Southern California counties retained the top two places: Riverside County, where there were 80 deaths on Monday, and Orange County, where there were 66. Elsewhere. In Southern California, the counties of Ventura and Imperial also ranked among the top 10 statewide, with 18 and 17 deaths respectively.
In the San Joaquin Valley, three counties reported double-digit death tolls Monday: San Joaquin, with 27; Fresno, with 24; and Tulare, with 11. The total death toll in Fresno County ranks seventh in California, just behind Sacramento County, where the death toll rose 28 on Monday to 1,185.
Nationally, the US is trending in the same way as California: infections have dropped dramatically and hospitalizations are starting to follow. After leading the nation for much of the past month, California’s recent reduction in the number of cases has allowed a handful of other states to surpass the number of infections per capita in the past week, but at about 65 daily cases per 100,000 residents, California is still in the rankings. the top 10 nationally.
But deaths are still occurring in the US in some of their greatest numbers from the pandemic. On Monday, the country’s death toll exceeded 420,000, according to data collected by the New York Times, and the virus still kills an average of more than 3,000 Americans a day.