“The good news is that our Covid has reached almost 4,000 admissions in our hospitals per day,” said Dr. Health and Human Services Minister Mark Ghaly said in California on Tuesday. “Now we see days below 2,500 and getting even lower, that’s exactly what will improve our hospital conditions and keep our ICU capacity so high.”
The cautiously optimistic briefing of the HHS chief today comes 24 hours after Gavin Newsom abruptly placed the kibosh on the state’s local home order after just over a month and a half.
“We hope Californians do not see yesterday’s announcement as ‘let’s sit down’, but let’s keep our guard up,” Ghaly said. “Let’s do what we can to make sure our rates don’t go up and up, even though our hospital delivery system looks better, it seems like it can get right what’s coming its way.”
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The data-heavy virtual briefing on Tuesday was also marked by a damaging anniversary: it’s exactly one year after the first two cases of Covid-19 were reported in California. Since then, there have been 37,500 deaths due to the coronavirus in the most populous state of America.
Ghaly looked forward to where things could be by February 21 if current trends continue and walk on a thin political line, and also complimented Californians for the increasing masking and other “difficult decisions” during the holidays. “We think the significant decrease has been down to 25,000 hospital admissions, 5,000 admissions to ICUs … which not only protect our health care system but also real lives saved across our country, and to be honest, many of our family members who are defenseless, “he said.
In its first media appearance on the pandemic in about ten days, Newsom on Monday swore that the decision to remove the stay-at-home order was based on science, declining cases and hospitalizations and four-week ICU projections.
With death throughout Covid-19 still at near record levels, Newsom had to take cover for accusations that the reopening had clear political considerations. The Democrat is attempting to reconsider a comprehensive but stubborn, splashy distribution program for vaccines, and is facing a burgeoning reminder attempt and a resurgence of large and small businesses devastated by the seemingly impulsive policies of the Golden State.
As a sort of epilogue, Tuesday’s numbers revealed downward trends in support of Newsom’s decision. Most striking is that there was a 33% drop in the 14-day positivity rate between January 12 and today.
In addition, ICU hospitalizations have begun to decline over the past two weeks, an overall decrease of 10.6% from 12 January. The recent nomination of the government’s ministry of industry agencies, Yolanda Richardson, tried Tuesday’s briefing to assure Californians that the Newsom government has a viable vaccine. plans to get vaccines to citizens, with a new emphasis on traditionally underserved communities, in a move that reflects the Biden government.
In the spirit of total hope for one of the states hardest hit in a country plagued by Covid-19, Ghaly has unveiled the criteria and math the state has used to justify its home order. “Today, cases become hospitalized within two to three weeks, and ICU cases about four weeks later,” he said. “So if we really want to determine the impact of our current case numbers, our current transmission rates, our current positive test of where we’ll be in the hospitals, we need to look at about four weeks.”
On the other hand, Ghaly admitted that he had ‘uncertainty’ recently last week over whether to lift stay-at-home orders due to the volatility of Covid numbers. He also stated that the controversial closure of outdoor dining last month was based on a desire to ‘reduce overall movement and overall mix’ and not any specific science – a sore spot for many businesses, their owners and employees.
According to the information released this afternoon, California had nearly 3.2 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 17,028 new cases.
While sprawling Los Angeles County remains in a critical situation, with cases and deaths still showing the impact of the holiday season and compliance with random security, the region’s almost almighty board of supervisors voted Monday to impose its own restrictions . In line with the state, the Southern California region will allow for the reinstatement of outdoor dining and other private and commercial activities in the coming days. Since new case and death data are expected to be available later today, this LA and this CA, this may change again, of course.
“The Super Bowl is coming up and we’ve seen what happens when people gather for a sporting event in each other’s homes,” said Hilda Solis, president of LA County, about the showdown between Kansas City Chiefs and Tom Brady Tampa Bay Buccaneers on February 7th. .