COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continued to plummet Thursday in California, and state models are increasingly optimistic about the pandemic.
With 5,525 new cases reported on Thursday, according to data compiled by this news organization, the California average last week fell to its lowest point since the first week of November, while the number of Californians hospitalized with COVID- 19 fell below 6,000 in the first half since before Thanksgiving.
California cases have fallen 87% since last month’s peak and have been cut by more than half in the past two weeks. Hospitalizations have fallen 73% since last month’s peak and 43% in the past two weeks, to an active total of 5,934 on Wednesday, according to state data.
Next month, according to state models, there may be fewer Californians hospitalized than at any other time in the pandemic record books, which date back to the last days of last March. By March 24, active admissions will have dropped to less than 2,000, according to state models, and within a week after that, the total is projected to drop to close to 1,000.
For almost 11 months, a minimum of 2,000 Californians at any one time have been hospitalized by COVID-19. The only pandemic period recorded in California with less than 2,000 active hospitalizations occurred during the first four days of record keeping, from March 29 to April 1 of last year.
To reach the projected total next month, hospitalizations in California would have to drop another 82%.
As transmission decreases, hospitalizations follow.
When California launched its updated modeling tool in the second week of December, the reproductive rate of the virus in the state was 1.2, meaning that a single infected person would spread the virus to an average of more than one person, a formula for exponential growth.
Now, the “R-effective” rate across the state has dropped to 0.69, and the spread is probably decreasing, which means a rate of 0.9 or less in all but seven counties, according to state models. In the bay area, reproductive rates range from 0.83 in Marin County to 0.64 in Alameda County.
As a region, the improvement of the Bay Area was slightly exceeded by the state. Cases in the region have dropped approximately 83% from last month’s peak and 47% in the past two weeks. Southern California has averaged a tenth of the cases since its peak last month, including a 55% decline in the past two weeks.
With a peak infection rate in the past month more than double the bay area per capita, Southern California’s 13.8 daily cases per 100,000 residents last week remain higher than 10.5 per 100,000 inhabitants of the bay area, despite a more drastic decline.
Southern California is still feeling the effects of the state’s biggest and longest-lasting outbreak, again accounting for most of the fatalities reported on Thursday, though less than the region’s outsized share of the deaths.
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 total, Southern California was responsible for about 65% of fatalities across the state on Thursday and has been responsible for nearly three out of four deaths since the start of the pandemic, despite representing just under 60% of the population. of State.
In the bay area, there were 51 reported deaths between their locations, led by 19 in Contra Costa and 18 in Santa Clara counties. Alameda County also added six deaths, and San Francisco reported four. Throughout the pandemic, the region was responsible for approximately one in nine deaths in California, being home to about one in five Californians.
Deaths everywhere are coming in lower numbers than last month. A month from now, the death toll in California must have increased by less than 4,000, according to state models, rising to close to 55,000 on March 20.