The California Department of Public Health has added Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties to a watch list of places experiencing an increase in coronavirus infections and hospitalizations.
In the past few days, Contra Costa County has seen a 17% increase in hospitalizations, and the state believes it is due to more people getting sick as the economy reopens and resumes its normal routines.
Santa Clara County has seen a 23% increase in hospitalizations, and the state attributes transfers from outside the county and long-term care facilities, as well as to people from other places who choose their in-county hospital care from Santa Clara.
An infectious disease specialist at Stanford told the San Francisco Chronicle that the increase is “a second wave of behavior.”
The Bay Area and the state have seen daily cases increase nearly 74% this month compared to May, with more than 200,000 cases total.
On Thursday, Governor Gavin Newsom unveiled a website, calcat.covid19.ca.gov, which allows any expert to take a look at the state’s data on the coronavirus and help find solutions to the recent surge.
“Citizen scientists, the people who code every day, we want to give them access through an open source platform to all the available data that we have, that I have that our health professionals have,” Newsom said.
During this most recent increase, Newsom and medical experts are urging Californians to wear masks when appropriate and maintain social distance.
.
