In the latest gloomy sign of how deadly the last days of the COVID-19 pandemic were, California reported more than 500 lives lost to the virus on Thursday, yet the state’s average daily death toll fell after the final number was finalized.
The average daily death caused by COVID-19 has risen for more than a month in California, but fell slightly from its highest pandemic point on Thursday to about 369 a day in the past week, after county health departments combined for to report 508 deaths statewide, according to data compiled by this news organization. After a break after Christmas, the number of state cases rose slightly again to about 39,700 a day in the last week, after another 40,196 were reported around the state on Thursday.
The virus has killed more than 1,000 Californians in the past 48 hours, the deadliest two-day period of the pandemic. However, no day passed on New Year’s Eve, when 571 deaths were recorded, which was replaced in the average seven-day calculation of 508 reported on Thursday, causing it to fall. However, more than 2,500 Californians have lost their lives to the virus since the start of the new year, a weekly total that exceeded that of a few months earlier in the pandemic, the equivalent of one death every four minutes.
Nationally, the United States broke its daily death toll for the second day in a row and recorded more than 4,000 deaths in 24 hours for the first time in the pandemic, according to data collected by the New York Times. In the first week of the new year, more than 19,400 Americans lost their lives to the virus, according to the Times, the country’s deadliest pandemic week.
While the number of national cases increased before its pre-Christmas peak, California is on average about 12% fewer cases than it was at its peak before the holiday. Since Monday, however, the average daily infections have increased by about 10%. Even representing its massive population, only two states have experienced more infections per capita in the last week, and only three have a higher proportion of residents currently hospitalized with the virus.
Hospital admissions have slowed across California, but there are still more COVID-positive patients hospitalized statewide than at any other point in the pandemic. On Wednesday, the active number rose to 21,939, according to the latest state data, including 4,712 intensive care patients.
In the Gulf area, ICU capacity fell to its lowest point in the pandemic, with only 3.5% of staff and licensed beds in the region remaining available, according to state data. While most deaths continued to come in Southern California, where hospitals have been up for more than two weeks, there were also a substantial number of deaths Wednesday in the Bay Area.
The first state-ordered refrigerated trailers, intended for temporary storage of corpses, arrived this week in Imperial County, with several on their way to other heavily affected localities, including Sonoma County, according to the Office of Emergency Services. They were also deployed in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Monterey counties.
Los Angeles County, where nearly half of all state deaths occurred in the past week, reported another 217 on Thursday, followed by three other Southern California towns: San Diego County, with 47; Riverside County, 38; and Orange County, with 29.
In the Bay Area region, which, according to the order of the state of residence at home, includes the counties of Santa Cruz and Monterey, the last three days have brought three of the four largest balances of the pandemic, including 75 on Thursday. In Santa Clara County, 16 deaths rose to more than 800 on Thursday. In Alameda County, there were also 16 deaths, bringing the cumulative total to more than 700. And in Santa Cruz County, the cumulative death toll exceeded 100 after another seven were reported on Thursday. Elsewhere in the region, Contra Costa also reported 16 new deaths, reaching 371; Sonoma County added nine to its number, which increased to 213; and the death toll in San Francisco doubled to 205.
The number of deaths nationwide exceeded 500 on Wednesday for the third time in the pandemic, all occurring in the last eight days.
In the Gulf area, deaths have risen 40 percent in the past two weeks, but continue to come at the lowest per capita rate in any region of California. In contrast, Southern California has reported significantly higher rates of infections and deaths per capita in the last week than any other region in California. In the last week itself, about one in 140 Californians tested positive for COVID-19, compared with about one in 120 in Southern California and about one in 260 in the Bay Area.