Weeks after California Governor Gavin Newsom identified Imperial County as the most affected region in the state, he announced in his daily press conference that the state’s Central Valley was the new main area of concern.
While the statewide 14-day average positive test rate is 7.5 percent, that rate in the Central Valley ranges from 10.7 to 17.7 percent. Essential farm, manufacturing, and prison workers have been particularly affected.
The governor announced that, as he did a few weeks ago in heavily affected Imperial County, he was deploying three “strike teams” comprised of HHS, OSHA, state emergency services personnel and local partners to assist the Central Valley.
Announced a $ 52 million investment to strengthen testing, tracing, and health care support in the Central Valley. That comes through a $ 400 million grant from the CDC.
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In the Central Valley, here are 8 counties where R is above 1, which means that for each infected person, they transmit it to more than one additional person. The state’s top health official, Dr. Mark Ghaly, said the R was as high as 1.4 in some cases.
Some areas that see 65 percent of their hospital and ICU beds occupied by coronavirus cases, said Dr. Ghaly.
Outside of the Central Valley, the governor said, Imperial Valley is making progress, while Los Angeles was still “a disproportionate focus” of state efforts.
Across the state, the 18-49 age group “continues to see a disproportionate rate of growth” and the Latino community continues to be disproportionately impacted, Newsom said.
California saw 6,891 new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, he reported, for a total of 460,550 confirmed infections. COVID-19 resulted in 29 new deaths in the state totaling 8,445. The number of COVID-related deaths increased 0.3 percent from Saturday’s 8,416 total. The numbers were significantly lower in part due to delays caused by a new reporting process.
The number of COVID-19 diagnostic test results in California totaled 7,296,578, an increase of 128,439 tests since Saturday. The positive result rate in the last 14 days is 7.5 percent. That number has “stayed strong,” according to Newsom.
To keep residents from letting their guard down due to lower recent numbers, the governor recalled that the 7-day average of new daily cases is 9,859. The seven-day average of new daily deaths, he said, also increased. That number was 91 a week ago and today is 109.
“Those 7-day averages were a testament to a different reality,” Newsom said. “Please wake us up to that reality.”
Hospitalizations increased by 29, or .3 percent. The number of new ICU patients in the state increased by 19, filling a total of 2,012 of the 10,000 ICU beds in the state. After bottoming out in 28 percent of the state’s intensive care beds, the percentage of beds occupied by coronavirus patients has increased in the past seven days to 28.8 percent. The governor says those rates of increase are “more modest” than a few weeks ago.
About 7,000 Californians are now in hospital beds with COVID-19. That’s more than during the spring surge from March to April, according to the California Hospital Association.
Watch the Newsom press conference below.
