In another dramatic sign of how quickly California is recovering from COVID-19, the state posted its lowest hospitalization rate since the first weeks of the pandemic, according to data reviewed by The Times.
The numbers come just a few months after the winter surge left Southern California hospitals overwhelmed with patients and with a spike in deaths.
But in the last three months, COVID-19 has rapidly receded across the region, allowing for a massive reopening of the economy and the hope of returning to some sort of normalcy by the summer.
California is now at the bottom of the nation’s line when it comes to coronavirus case rates. On Tuesday, Los Angeles County moved to the least restrictive level of California’s color lock system, clearing the way for the nation’s most populous county to reopen its economy to the fullest extent possible.
The number of COVID-19 patients registered statewide on Monday – the most recent day for which data is available – was 1,608. That number is less than the lowest in the record of hospitalizations reported by The Times state officials, which began on March 30, 2020, when 1,617 people were hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 infections.
Monday’s figure represents a 93% drop in hospitalizations from the peak – on January 6 – when 21,936 COVID-19 patients were in hospitals.
On Sunday, Los Angeles County recorded the lowest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations, 386, just 5% from its peak of 8,098. In recent days and weeks, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties have also recorded the lowest COVID-19 hospitalizations since the first weeks of the pandemic.
In San Francisco, there were only 15 people hospitalized with COVID-19 on Monday, down 6% from its peak of 259, according to figures provided by the state.
“Hospitalizations are at the lowest levels of the pandemic since we have been keeping records,” San Francisco Public Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax told the San Francisco Health Commission on Tuesday. “After 15 months of this pandemic, we are in a much better situation.”
However, some areas of the state are worse off.
While no county in California is at the most restrictive purple tier, a dozen of the state’s 58 counties are at the second most restrictive tier, or red. These counties – Sacramento, San Joaquín, Stanislaus, Solano, Placer, Merced, Shasta, Madera, Nevada, Yuba, Tehama and Del Norte – are mostly located in the Central Valley, the foothills of the Sierra and the rural north of the state. .
Near Lake Tahoe, a coronavirus outbreak has infected 32 students at Truckee High School, where disease researchers have traced viral transmission to off-campus activities. In addition to those who have tested positive for the virus, another 166 students are in quarantine.
Elsewhere in Northern California, Humboldt County health authorities attribute the recent surge in coronavirus cases to crowds in the area. Humboldt officials said many of the new cases are related to one or more overcast events.
One of the outbreaks was related to a Pentecostal church in Eureka. In a statement posted on the church’s website, it was not immediately clear whether the outbreak stemmed from a religious service or from outside gatherings between parishioners. Upon learning of the outbreak, the church said it immediately closed all its services and facilities and worked with officials to establish a testing site in the parking lot.
California’s relative acceptance of vaccines has been credited as a factor that has helped keep per capita case counts over the past week at the lowest level of any state in the nation.
But large disparities remain in California in who gets vaccinated. Vaccination rates are relatively lower in several counties in the Central Valley and in rural counties in the north of the state. While more than 60% of residents of San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin, and Alpine counties have received at least one dose of the vaccine, less than 30% of residents of Lassen, Tehama counties, Kings, Yuba and Modoc have done it.
People who live in the wealthiest areas of the state are much more likely to have received a vaccine than those who reside in the poorest areas. A Times analysis found that 61% of individuals living in the most disadvantaged areas of the state have received at least one dose of the vaccine, but only 38% of the inhabitants of the most disadvantaged areas of California have been vaccinated.
In Los Angeles County, while approximately 50% of White, Asian American, and Native American residents eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine have received at least one dose, only about 30% of Latino and Black residents have received at least one dose.
Health authorities say they are trying to make it easier to vaccinate people who have not yet received a dose, for example by extending weekend and evening hours and bringing vaccination clinics to areas hardest hit by the pandemic.
Some people who have low-income jobs and work long hours are interested in the vaccine, but have not received it yet because they have little free time to look for it, and the vaccination sites are far from where they live or work.
Times writer Hayley Smith contributed to this report.
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