California Covid-19 Update: New Infections Jump 20% In Single Day; Record Number Of Hospitalizations, ICU Patients And Deaths This Week
The number of daily new Covid-19 cases in California jumped 20% in the past 24 hours to a new all-time high of 35,468. It’s the third record number of new cases in the past week. The state has also seen records fall in terms of deaths — that was 220 yesterday — and hospitalizations — at 12,940 on Friday — and ICU capacity — with just 9% left statewide.
Certain areas in the state were even worse off. The hard-hit San Joaquin Valley had just 4.5% of its ICU beds left. The state’s adjusted metric showed remaining ICU capacity in Orange County at just 2.3% on Friday. The number for all of Southern California was 6.2%. ICUs in San Diego and Santa Clara Counties are projected to reach capacity next week.
California hit 30,000 daily new cases on Sunday. The state seems to now be seeing a surge on top of that surge. A rise to say 40,000 new cases daily would mean over a quarter of a million new infections each week. Conservatively, 10% of those people would end up in the hospital, which would mean 28,000 over a one-week period. That’s unsustainable, given that the state only has about 72,000 beds.
Health officials have long warned of this surge on top of a surge scenario. The “nightmare” situation they say would be to see yet another surge from infections transmitted at December holiday gatherings.
That’s a familiar pattern in the U.S. for flu infections and it’s long been feared that the progress of Covid-19 would follow suit. While health officials have pleaded with Californians not to gather for the holidays, the tone of their warnings has become darker in the past week.
“We’re on a very dangerous track to seeing unprecedented and catastrophic suffering and death,” Los Angeles Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer warned on Friday.
“This is what we would call a Thanksgiving surge,” said Ferrer. “We had a surge and now we have a surge on top of a surge. Should this be followed by another surge from another holiday, it could be catastrophic.”
More from Deadline
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.