SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – State applications to stay at home will remain in effect in the Bay until at least January 8, depending on the projections of the intensive care unit, health officials said on Saturday.
The home’s home order is caused when the average ICU capacity of a region drops below 15 percent. The Bay Area’s current ICU capacity is at 5.1 percent, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The San Joaquin Valley, Southern California and the greater Sacramento regions remain among the stay-at-home orders because their four-week ICU capacity projections do not meet the ability to exit the order, the department said.
The available capacity in the greater Sacramento region is 6.9 percent, while the San Joaquin Valley and southern California are up to a whopping 0 percent, according to the department.
The Department of Health said Saturday that California has 2,345,909 confirmed cases so far, although the numbers may not represent the true day-to-day change, as reporting of test results could be delayed. There were 53,341 newly confirmed cases Friday and the 7-day positivity rate is 14 percent, while the 14-day positive rate is 12.6 percent, the department said.
33,391,442 tests were conducted in California, representing an increase of 333,131 during the preceding 24-hour reporting period.
As the numbers in California continue to increase, so will the total number of individuals who have serious outcomes. There have been 26,357 COVID-19 deaths since the onset of the pandemic.
As of Wednesday, a total of 335,983 doses of vaccine have been administered across the country. As of Monday, a total of 1,762,900 vaccine doses had been distributed to local health departments and healthcare systems with facilities in various provinces.
HOPEFUL SIGNS
With the dominance of December by the ICU capacity and signs of a holiday coronavirus boom, it was easy to miss some good news: a boom after Thanksgiving finally got steam.
“We have therefore seen a slight weakening in the increase in our cases,” Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody, just before Christmas, said.
“It will take a week or so before it all works out,” UCSF epidemiologist George Rutherford said. “I think right before Christmas we started to see a dive, which was good and we saw it in different indicators.”
Whether the positive trend continues or not is currently difficult to determine. The holidays and weekends reduced the tests and put the delay in reporting.
“I think things are going in the right direction,” Rutherford said. ‘The question is whether these trends have been damaged by the New Year. We’re going to know it first before we know it. ”
Southern California, however, is a different story – on Friday, there are 20,000 new cases in Los Angeles, with a test positivity of more than 21 percent.
“You know, there’s an interesting thing being kicked around, it’s the British variant that was found in San Diego in several cases,” Rutherford explained. The question now is whether it could be stress differences that are causing more diseases in Southern California. I think it’s a terribly easy statement, based on five cases, out of 20,000 … but it’s something to look at. ‘
Back in the Bay, the improvement in numbers will be just that: an improvement from early December. Real progress would still be a way.
“At some point, we will be able to withdraw ourselves because a lot of people have been vaccinated,” Rutherford said. “I think we need to keep going for a few more months until we get the vaccines in place.”
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