While Gov. Gavin Newsom revoked California’s restraining order on Monday, COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state continued to decline, and average daily cases remained close to their lowest point in months.
California hospitals have lost a net average of 300 patients a day since peaking just over two weeks ago, and most recently dropped to 17,432 active hospitalizations on Sunday, a 20% decline in recent two weeks. The rate of positive tests also fell sharply to 8% of all tests last week, after reaching 14% two weeks ago. With about 28,180 new cases a day in the last week, California averages the fewest infections in the second week of December, according to data compiled by the news organization.
However, California is still in the midst of a pandemic death toll. With a monthly death toll of more than 11,500 and six more days to go, January is on track to be not only the deadliest month of the California pandemic, but twice. On Monday, California’s total death toll rose to 37,499 – more than any state except New York – with 434 deaths reported recently. This pushed the seven-day total to 3,766, or an average of 538 a day, surpassing a period earlier this month as the deadliest seven days of the pandemic.
During the pandemic, the bay area managed to avoid the mass deaths observed in the southern part of the state. On Monday, however, Santa Clara County recorded the third number of deaths in the state – 53, which includes late weekend data – the highest number reported on any day of the pandemic. Elsewhere in the region, there were 16 more deaths spread across Santa Cruz, Solano, Napa, Marin and Alameda counties.
Although about one in five Californians lives in the Bay Area, only about one in 10 deaths caused by COVID-19 has occurred in the region. Southern California, which makes up just over half of the state’s population, has accounted for more than two in three deaths in the state since the pandemic began – and an even larger portion in the past month, nearly three in four.
The deaths reported Monday pushed the total in Santa Clara County to more than 1,200, the highest number of deaths in the Bay Area and the sixth in the state. The five counties in front of it are in Southern California, led by Los Angeles County, where more than 15,000 people have died from COVID-19.
In a rare incident, Los Angeles County reported 10 fewer deaths on Monday than Santa Clara County, but two other Southern California counties maintained the top two spots: Riverside County, where 80 deaths were reported Monday, and Orange County. where there were 66. Elsewhere in Southern California, Ventura and Imperial counties also ranked in the top 10 nationally, with 18 and 17 deaths, respectively.
In the San Joaquin Valley, three counties reported double-digit deaths on 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 288 to 1,185 on Monday.
Nationally, the United States is evolving similarly to California: infections have dropped dramatically, and hospitalizations have begun to follow. After spending much of last month leading the nation, the recent reduction in cases in California has allowed a handful of other states to overtake it in per capita infections in the past week, but in about 65 daily cases per 100,000 residents. , the top 10 nationally.
But deaths in the United States still occur in some of the highest pandemic figures. On Monday, the death toll in the country exceeded 420,000, according to data collected by the New York Times, and the virus still kills more than 3,000 Americans a day.