California continues to have lowest COVID rates in the country



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California continues to have the lowest levels of coronavirus transmission in the country, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Monday, the agency’s color-coded map showed California as having a “moderate” level of virus transmission, represented by yellow, with 48 other states stuck in the “high” transmission category, labeled red, and the Connecticut advancing into second worst “substantial” level, marked in orange.

However, the data released on Monday can sometimes be wrong due to irregularities reported over the weekend. Ali Bay, a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health, said the state believes the updated data will show California is still technically in the Amber Box because data on cases is not being reported on. weekend.

Nonetheless, cases and hospitalizations have declined sharply in California as the state emerges on the other side of a strong surge caused by the highly transmissible delta variant of the virus.

“California has the lowest rate of COVID cases in the country. The data doesn’t lie – vaccines work, ”Gavin Newsom’s office tweeted on Monday.

Health experts have long attributed California’s success to above-average vaccination rates for the state and thoughtful virus mitigation measures, including mask and vaccine warrants.

The state has yet to return to the “low” level of COVID transmission, shown in blue on the map. He did so for the last time in June.

The state’s viral positivity rate has fallen to 2.6% in the past eight weeks, the health department reports. About 59% of the population is vaccinated against COVID-19, slightly above the US average of 57%.

The Bay Area is doing much better than California as a whole.

According to state data analyzed by The Chronicle, the average seven-day daily case rate per 100,000 people in the Bay Area was nearly 40% higher than in California as a whole. Marin County has the lowest seven-day case rate in the state, followed by San Mateo County and Santa Clara County – with Alameda County, Sonoma County and San Francisco not far behind .

Note: This story has been updated with comments from the California Department of Health, which believes the state is still in the “substantial” transmission level due to a weekend reporting lag.

Aidin Vaziri is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected]

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