Active COVID-19 cases nears 20,000, four times last winter’s infections levels

The official number of confirmed, active COVID-19 cases in Sonoma County has skyrocketed to 18,415 since late December, a tenfold increase since Christmas and four times the number of active infections during the peak of last year’s winter surge.

The actual number of county residents contracting the virus could be two to three times higher than that on the conservative side, said Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley. Because so many people either don’t know they have COVID or haven’t been tested, a more “aggressive” estimate would be “five or more times,” he said.

Combine that with the number of COVID-19 exposures tied to each infection and the impact on a county of just under half a million people can be debilitating, Swartzberg said.

“These are enormous numbers,” he said. “That’s people who can’t go to school, can’t be a teacher, can’t go to work or be a nurse or doctor. It really cripples society.”

Last year, a far deadlier winter surge infected far fewer people than today’s omicron wave. The official number of active cases peaked at 5,377 on Jan. 24. The good news is that omicron is causing less severe illness than the delta mutation or earlier variants.

The bad news is that the sheer volume of infections and exposures is still filling local hospitals and straining the local community and its economy. It also is leading to near empty classrooms and staffing shortages as students and workers stay home to isolate if they test positive or quarantine if they are exposed.

During a county COVID-19 briefing Tuesday, public health officials said an average of more than 1,250 people a day are now testing positive for the virus.

“Our new case rates are reaching levels not experienced in two years of the pandemic,” said Dr. Sundari Mase, the county’s health officer. “A month ago, we were averaging about 90 new cases a day.”

Mase confirmed that the official rates are likely an “underestimate,” in part because many people are taking antigen tests, which are not counted in the official county case rates.

Local test positivity and case rates are based on molecular PCR tests, the gold standard for COVID-19 testing.

Mase said the unprecedented wave of infections is the reason she issued a public health order last week banning large indoor and outdoor gatherings, as well as an appeal for local residents to stay home as much as possible, except for work or school, and going to the grocery store or a doctor’s office.

Peter Rumble, CEO of the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber, said today’s public health measures and bench marks may be overkill for a coronavirus strain that is causing less severe illness. Rumble called for a re-examination of current pandemic mitigation measures, one that is more “nuanced” and focuses on those who are at highest risk — the unvaccinated and those with compromised health.

“We have alarming numbers of positive cases but that means something that is quite different from before,” he said. “We’re in a completely different ballgame right.”

Though omicron is believed to cause less severe illness, the current number of COVID-19 hospitalizations, 88 as of Monday, is just under what it was when the pandemic peaked last winter. That’s because omicron is causing so many more infections — a small share of a very large number is still a large number.

The pandemic has claimed 426 lives since it began nearly two years ago.

During the COVID-19 briefing Tuesday, Mase said 30% of patients in local intensive care units are now COVID-19 positive. In the past two weeks, Sonoma County has the third highest percent increase in hospitalizations out of the state’s 58 counties, she said.

Mase said the omicron wave is overwhelming local emergency rooms, where staffing shortages and hospital capacity issues have pushed wait times up to 4 hours and ambulance patient offload times have now average 37 minutes, 20 minutes higher than the state bench mark.

The COVID-19 briefing also addressed the local impact on schools, where infections have led to some local school closings.

Before the current surge, there were about 1,231 student cases reported following the fall reopening of schools. In the past week alone, public nurses have reported more than 2,000 cases among schoolchildren.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.