Even as the increase in coronavirus in the bay area appeared to be stabilizing, the United States crossed another dark milestone on Tuesday: 400,000 deaths.
At least 401,120 people in the United States died of coronavirus on Tuesday afternoon, Johns Hopkins University reported – representing nearly 1 in 830 Americans.
The pace of deaths has also accelerated: it took the United States about four months to record its first 100,000 deaths, but just over five weeks for the country to go from 300,000 to 400,000.
The image of the hospital in the bay area and the rest of California was a little more optimistic, however, as post-vacation cases and hospital overload seemed to be decreasing. The region reported an average of about 38 deaths per day last week, while in the previous week it reported an average of about 62 new deaths per day.
California has grown from more than 3,500 hospital admissions earlier this month to an average of 2,700 a day now, said Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services – a “significant reduction,” he said. The rate of transmission of the virus is also decreasing across the state, as is the rate of new cases of viruses in nursing homes.
Even though the peak of the wave appears to have passed, “there is still an enormous amount of COVID in our communities,” said Ghaly. The new L452R variant, which spread quickly in California, remains under study, he said, with the state working with UCSF and Scripps College and the federal government. “We know that it has recently been identified in several major outbreaks in Santa Clara County,” he said, and officials are “working to determine whether this variant has an increase in infectiousness, its impact on vaccinations. … These variants underscore the need to maintain our guard. ”… It will certainly have an impact on how we will move forward. “
Vaccines remain another area of major concern. San Francisco’s vaccine supply – which goes to San Francisco General Hospital and municipal clinics that serve those who are insured or underinsured – could run out on Thursday if the city doesn’t receive new shipments, Mayor London Breed said in Tuesday.
Private providers have a separate vaccine pipeline, and Breed added that the city’s supply restriction “should not have a significant impact” on plans to open a mass vaccination center soon at City College.
San Francisco’s entire health care system – including public and private providers – received 102,825 doses of the vaccine on Tuesday, Breed said. But these should count as first and second doses. There are approximately 210,000 people in San Francisco eligible for the vaccine under the first tier of the California distribution system.
Dr. Grant Colfax, the city’s chief public health officer, said the city received 8,000 doses of the Moderna batch that the state recommended should not be administered pending further studies after a series of allergic reactions from the Petco Park batch, the Padres’ stadium in San Diego.
“We took a break from those for the sake of caution,” he said. “We didn’t receive any replacement doses.”
Dr. Sara Cody, public health officer for Santa Clara County, said the county received “just over 21,000” of the doses of Moderna under scrutiny, which had been scheduled to be distributed by the county, Stanford Health Care and El Camino Hospital. None was given.
Ghaly said a vaccine safety committee will meet on Tuesday to determine whether the batch is safe and “we believe we will reach a resolution soon.”
San Francisco expects to receive another shipment of 1,775 doses this week, health officials said, but each has already been claimed – and that compares to 12,000 doses received last week.
San Francisco, on Tuesday morning, launched a website to notify people when it is their turn to get the vaccine. Some reported problems and crashes – which the city attributed to a “high volume of visits”. It seemed to be working again around 1 pm.
Cody, of Santa Clara County, said the uncertainties in supply made it “impossible for the county to plan the distribution of the vaccine in advance”. She added: “It is likely that future allocations will not distinguish between a first and a second dose.”
At the state level, Ghaly said California may have reached approximately its goal of vaccinating 1 million people in 10 days over the weekend. About 1,525,815 doses were administered until Tuesday. Friday saw most vaccines administered in the state in one day at 110,505 doses.
The entire area of the bay remains under an order of stay at home. Asked when it would end in San Francisco, Colfax said: “We have some promising signs regarding case rates starting to drop and hospitalizations starting to stabilize. … If this trend continues, I hope that we will leave this state order to stay at home. “
Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF, said the region avoided the worst predictions about high hospitalizations and credited the Bay Area’s relative success compared to the rest of the state to the early implementation of blockages and its obedient residents.
But, she warned, that compliance could have an expiration date if authorities do not put an end date on the region’s rigid blockades.
California surpassed 3 million cases on Tuesday – meaning that about 7.6% of Californians have contracted a coronavirus infection since the start of the pandemic.
Chronicle staff writers Trisha Thadani and Aidin Vaziri contributed.
Michael Williams is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected]