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A month after reopening California lifted most pandemic restrictions, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the rise, worrying public health officials as they grapple with the more infectious Delta variant and the delay of vaccinations in some communities.
Of particular concern has been Los Angeles County, with five consecutive days of more than 1,000 new cases, a five-fold increase from mid-June.
On June 15, Governor Gavin Newsom formally ended the state’s stay-at-home and mandatory mask orders affecting 40 million people, allowing most businesses to fully reopen. Vaccinated or not, many unmasked Californians have flocked to reopened stores, restaurants, churches and sporting events.
The fallout: Nearly 3,100 new cases of COVID-19 were reported on Wednesday, up from 700 on June 15. And the state’s test positivity rate – a measure of how much virus is circulating in a community – fell from 0.08% to 3%, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The actual number of cases, however, remains low compared to the peak of the devastating winter wave in California, when daily new cases exceeded 50,000.
The number of cases and test results may fluctuate due to reporting delays. But public health officials in some areas have reported notable spikes in cases and hospitalizations.
Between June 12 and July 12, the counties of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Orange saw the largest increases in the 7-day average of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people, excluding counties with very small population, according to an analysis of CalMatters data. The case rate in San Francisco has nearly quadrupled to just over six cases per 100,000 population. Los Angeles’ case rate nearly tripled, and Orange County’s more than doubled.
About 1,935 people were hospitalized statewide with confirmed or suspected cases on Wednesday, up about 54% from hospitalizations on the day of the reopening. Hospitalization rates have increased in Yolo, Marin, El Dorado, Sonoma and Alameda counties.
Almost all of the new cases, hospitalizations and deaths were seen in unvaccinated people. About 40% of Californians are still not vaccinated.
Which begs the question: Did California reopen too soon?
Not necessarily, according to Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco.
“I think we were a really good place in California when we reopened,” Chin-Hong told CalMatters. “And we had no idea what the Delta variant was going to do.”
California has waited longer than most states to fully reopen, Chin-Hong said. “We still expected an increase in cases after this.”
California’s regional outbreaks echo those across the country, with COVID-19 cases rising more than 50% last week in 31 states and hot spots re-emerging in Missouri, Arkansas and Florida.
Across California, the July 7 Delta variant has been found in 1,085 COVID-19 patients whose test results have been genetically sequenced, according to the state’s public health agency. But as a percentage of the state’s cases, it has grown incredibly rapidly, from just 2.2% of all sequenced tests in April to about 43% of all tests in June.
Chin-Hong says it’s important to distinguish between infections and those that cause severe symptoms or death, because COVID-19 vaccines remain strongly protective against both, even against the Delta variant.
The death rate has actually declined slightly since the day of the reopening; Since most California seniors are vaccinated, severe cases are much more common in young people, who are more likely to survive the disease. About 70% of the state’s COVID-19 cases as of July 7 have been seen in people under the age of 50.
Improved treatments, including monoclonal antibodies, have also improved patients’ chances.
Still, 30 deaths were reported statewide on Wednesday. About 1,935 people have been hospitalized statewide with confirmed or suspected cases, up about 54% from the number of hospitalizations on June 15.
Chin-Hong said unvaccinated Californians accounted for almost all of the hospitalizations and deaths. So-called “revolutionary” infections remain extremely rare in fully vaccinated people, a tiny fraction of 1% among more than 20 million Californians.
There was much doubt before and after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to largely end pandemic restrictions in mid-June.
In late May, Santa Clara County public health official Dr Sara Cody – who helped lead one of the country’s first shelter-in-place orders – raised concerns about the pace of the reopening of state and warned of a potential increase in cases.
Two weeks after California reopened, Los Angeles County Health Director Dr.Barbara Ferrer recommended that residents wear masks again as the Delta variant increases statewide and throughout the country. country.
But Chin-Hong suggests these COVID-19 outbreaks will become a regular part of life in California, much like flu season. It’s just that unvaccinated people will be much more likely to be hospitalized and die, he said.
“Just as there will be two Americas, there will be two Californias: the California of the vaccinated and the California of the unvaccinated,” he said. “If (non-elderly) people don’t get the flu shot they’re probably going to do fine, but with COVID you’re going to have a very different trajectory.”
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CalMatters data editor John Osborn D’Agostino contributed to this report. CALmatters.org is a non-profit, non-partisan media company explaining California politics and politics.
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