Alameda County could receive new COVID-19 home orders if intensive care capacity decreases, or sooner

Update, 9 p.m.: Alameda County Health officials said in a statement they could enforce home shelter orders sooner than the state requires if the community’s spread worsens and critical care capacity begins to shrink. lower. The latest figures put capacity at 33%, according to county hospitalization data.

Original story: Amid a dramatic surge in COVID-19 cases statewide, Governor Gavin Newsom today announced a new set of shelter-in-place orders that will go into effect in Alameda County if the Bay Area intensive care hospital capacity drops below 15% expected later this month.

The new guidelines divide the state into five regions based on mutual hospital aid: Northern California, Grand Sacramento, Bay Area – which includes Berkeley and Alameda County – San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

The Bay Area is doing the best among the regions, all of which are expected to drop below 15% at the start of the month, but Newsom said the capacity of the local ICU could fall below the limit in the area. the bay a few days later. The following rules will be in place if this happens:

• No gathering with people outside your home.
• Bars, wineries, personal care services such as barber shops, barbershops and playgrounds will be closed.
• Schools that have already opened can remain open, as well as essential infrastructure, retail at 20% capacity and restaurants for take out and delivery.

Regions will need to adhere to the restrictions for at least three weeks, by which time the state will examine community transmission and trend lines for the weeks to come. If the conditions are met and the restrictions are lifted, counties will return to their level in the state’s COVID plan.

The waiver system that previously allowed Berkeley and Alameda County to impose less restrictive guidelines is no longer in effect, and the city and county will have to follow state rules and restrictions if passed. The county and city, however, have the ability to impose even stricter rules.

Newsom also announced Thursday that all non-essential travel will be restricted statewide during the current wave.

“There’s light at the end of the tunnel, we’re a few months away from real progress with vaccines, real distribution, real accessibility, real uptime,” Newsom said, calling the third wave the “last wave.” of the pandemic. “We don’t anticipate having to start over, but we all really need to step up.”

The state has prioritized the administration of more than 320,000 doses of the three-tiered vaccine, which it plans to start receiving this month. This includes prison hospitals, health workers and other vulnerable populations. Selected regions will start placing orders for the vaccine on Friday, Newsom said.

On November 19, the state passed a limited home support order that required non-essential businesses to close between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. daily until December 21. The new rules are in response to the highest case counts in the state since the start of the pandemic, which is averaging nearly 15,000 cases per day.

The effects of the Thanksgiving holiday are not included in the current figures. A month ago, there were 14 deaths a day in California. Today, the daily death rate is in the order of 113 deaths per day in the state.

Numbers in Alameda County also spiked, but recent daily case records were at least partially due to a single outbreak at Golden Gate Fields racetrack on the Albany and Berkeley border. More than 200 workers there contracted the virus and the track said more than 95% of cases were asymptomatic.

There are currently nine cases per 100,000 people in Alameda County, which is adjusted for the amount of testing in the county, with an overall test positivity of 3.6%. Since the start of the pandemic, 520 people have died across the county.

Hospitalizations have skyrocketed in recent weeks to reach 157 and 57 in intensive care, compared to 213 hospitalized and 62 in intensive care in July. But hospitalizations have increased at a faster rate with the current outbreak. There are currently 85 intensive care beds available in the county (part of the total regional availability), which is about 30% of its total.

Berkeley, which has its own health department, has a positivity of 1.13% and an average of 10 cases per day last week. The dead in the city remained for nine years.

On a Monday Town Hall along with Mayor Jesse Arreguín, Berkeley public health official Dr Lisa Hernandez said the outbreak at Golden Gate Fields had contributed significantly to the city and county’s cases, but that’s not the only reason of the outbreak. She attributed the rise in cases to gatherings inside homes, as well as a few cases in workplaces.

“We are in a worse situation than at the start of the pandemic; however, we know what works to flatten the curve, ”Hernandez said, highlighting the continued importance of social distancing, masking, reducing travel and avoiding gatherings.