It is a metric that is frequently discussed Reopening the economy in California, a passport to normal life amid the COVID-19 epidemic.
The share of businesses depends on it. In many counties, it’s all about allowing people to dine indoors in restaurants, watching a movie on the big screen and sweating through spin classes in the gym.
Number: 7.0.
Under California’s latest reopening plan, state officials are required to get some benchmarks before counties allow more industries to unlock their doors and welcome customers. Counties from Los Angeles to Butty and Sonoma to San Bernardino have stopped trying to log seven or less new cases of coronavirus per 100,000 residents every day.
The silence of a metric – known as an adjusted case case – represents how many people are getting sick every day in the county.
The norm is part of the state’s efforts to remove the delicate balance that will prevent an increase in cases where restrictions are relaxed. Ideally, if the transmission is low enough, a small increase in the spread will not affect the health care system as more businesses are open.
California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. “All of these concepts and approaches stem from this notion of slow and rigid … so we should go back to that later,” said Mark Galli, in a recent briefing.
But what exactly the threshold should be is a guess, experts say, because no one really knows what a safe level transition is to reopen.
At the end of August Gust, government Gavin News unveiled a new reopening system that assigns tires to each county based on how extensive the transmission is. Related to the tire that is allowed to reopen. Counties meeting a benchmark indicating that the spread has been declining for two consecutive weeks may move to a less restrictive level.
For example, Sacramento County was long stuck at the level of purple – the most restrictive – in which most businesses are considered necessary or are only allowed to operate outside.
But last week, the state announced that the county had reduced the number of its new daily cases for the first time to less than seven out of 100,000 residents. If Sacramento continues its progress, it could move to the red level this week, allowing it to immediately resume indoor operations (with restrictions) on gyms, restaurants, museums, churches and other facilities, the county’s public health Dr. Olivia Kasire said. Officer.
“We are looking forward and expecting that we will officially go to the red,” Kasiri said in an interview.
The current state system largely relies on only two metrics: the case rate and the positivity rate, which is the percentage of virus tests that return positive.
These metrics were chosen against the number of hospital admissions or the number of deaths, as they should be disclosed relatively early on whether they have reported cases in the area relatively early, Gametli said. He noted that it could be a few weeks before hospitalization or an increase in deaths.
To move from purple to red, the county’s positivity rate must be 8% or lower, while its daily case rate is seven or less per 100,000 inhabitants. U.C. San Francisco epidemiologist Dr. George Ruthford said the numbers are partly estimated.
“It’s all arbitrary,” Ruthford said. “There is no page in the epidemic textbook that you can point to and say, ‘This is how you do it.’ … We learn to go together. “
The state has chosen to adjust the case number to take into account how much each county tests – it doesn’t want to penalize the county for catching more cases. If counties perform more tests than the state average, their case rate will decrease slightly; In contrast, counties that lag behind the state average on the test will adjust their case rates upwards.
In recent weeks, for which data was published, Kern County logged 6.3 cases per 100,000 residents daily. Yet the state recalculated the rate of corn for accounts for a lower-than-average amount of the county test. Which raised its case rate to 7.2 above the low threshold.
In contrast, Los Angeles County’s case rate was reduced from 7.7 to 7.0 due to extensive testing.
Based on these adjusted rates, 11 counties, including Ventura, Kern and Monterey, are stuck in the purple level with a case rate above 7.0, although their positivity rate is below 8%. San Diego County, in the red, was recently on the verge of returning to Jambudia as its case rate climbed above 0.0.
Despite its recent decline to 7.0, LA continues to struggle with its case rate. Barbara Ferrer, LA County’s director of public health, said she expects an increase in the case rate when new figures are released Tuesday, making the county unable to move forward with a resumption. The positivity rate has been below%, but the case rate is probably. Will not be in line, he said.
“The issue that has been the most difficult for us … has been the daily case rate; we have had to get an adjusted rate in seven new cases per 100,000 people,” Ferrer said Monday.
G. Lee said counties meet positivity rate requirements, but do not take into account case rate standards. Their positive rate will usually start to come down as the counties increase their testing, he said. Once testing is advanced, counties are able to ultimately reduce transmission using cases known for contact tracing and isolation.
“Looking at it all together, it’s really hopeful that it’s moving forward – that case positivity comes down a little earlier than the case rate, and that allows the counties to move forward with some degree of confidence.” Gali said.
