COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continued to fall in California on Thursday, and state models are increasingly optimistic about its outlook for the pandemic.
With 5,525 new cases reported on Thursday, according to data compiled by the news organization, the California average in the last week fell to its lowest point in the first week of November, while the number of Californians hospitalized with COVID-19 fell below 6,000 for the first time before Thanksgiving.
Cases in California have dropped 87 percent from last month and more than halved in the past two weeks. Hospitalizations fell 73 percent from last month and 43 percent in the past two weeks, to an active total of 5,934, starting Wednesday, according to state data.
By this date next month, according to state models, there could be fewer Californians hospitalized than any other date in the pandemic records, which date from the last days of last March. By March 24, active hospitalizations will have fallen below 2,000, according to state models, and within a week after that, the total is expected to drop to nearly 1,000.
For nearly 11 months, a minimum of 2,000 Californians at one time were hospitalized for COVID-19. The only period of pandemic in California, with less than 2,000 active hospitalizations, came in the first four days of evidence, from March 29 to April 1 last year.
To reach the projected total next month, California admissions should drop by another 82%.
As transmission decreased, hospitalizations followed.
When California released its updated modeling tool in the second week of December, the virus’s reproduction rate in the state was 1.2, meaning that a single infected person would spread the virus to an average of more than another person, a formula for exponential growth.
Now, the “R-efficient” rate at the national level has dropped to 0.69, and the spread is likely to decrease, which means a rate of 0.9 or less in all but the seven counties, according to the models of state. In the bay area, reproduction rates range from 0.83 in Marin County to 0.64 in Alameda County.
As a region, the improvement of the Gulf area has been slightly overtaken by the state. Cases in the region have dropped by about 83% from last month’s peak and by 47% in the past two weeks. Southern California has averaged a tenth of cases since its peak last month, including a 55 percent drop in the past two weeks.
With a maximum infection rate last month more than double that of the Bay Area per capita, the 13.8 daily cases in Southern California per 100,000 population in the last week remain higher than the 10.5 per 100,000 in Bay area, despite a more drastic decline.
Southern California continues to feel the effects of the state’s largest and most sustained outbreak, once again accounting for the majority of deaths reported Thursday, though less than the region’s excessive share of the total death toll.
On Thursday, the death toll in California rose to 51,384, with 394 new deaths.
Los Angeles County reported 115 new deaths, followed by 42 in Riverside County, 41 in Orange County and 30 in San Diego County.
In all, Southern California accounted for about 65 percent of the total number of deaths statewide on Thursday and was responsible for nearly three out of four deaths since the pandemic began, despite accounting for just under 60 percent of the state’s population.
In the bay area, 51 deaths were reported between its localities, led by 19 in Contra Costa counties and 18 in Santa Clara counties. Alameda County also added six deaths, and San Francisco reported four. During the pandemic, the region accounted for about one in nine deaths in California, while hosting about one in five Californians.
Deaths everywhere come in smaller numbers than this time last month. A month from now, it is estimated that the death toll in California would have risen by less than 4,000, according to state models, rising to nearly 55,000 by March 20.