COVID-19 infections possibly stabilizing in Sonoma County, but local transmission still widespread

After two months of slow but steady increases in COVID-19 cases, the last few days has seen a stabilization, if not an outright decrease, in the rate of new infections, Sonoma County health officials said Tuesday.

For seven consecutive days, average daily transmission dropped from 46.1 new cases per 100,000 residents on May 17 to 38.8 new cases per 100,000 on May 24, the latest county data available. But health officials warn its still too early to declare the end of the latest coronavirus surge.

“We have seen some stabilization of the case rates over I would say the last few days,” said Dr. Kismet Baldwin, the county’s deputy health officer. “However … there’s a lot of factors at play. Number one being we’ve just come off of a holiday weekend and it was great weather, people gathered, they had a great time and we usually see at least a slight bump after holidays.”

Baldwin said she and other health local health experts are cautiously optimistic that rates will continue to stabilize. But she said COVID-19 trends are defined by weeks and months not days.

“It would be nice to see more than a couple of days, I’d like to see a couple of weeks where we’re stable, where we’re coming down,” Baldwin said.

The recent COVID-19 surge, some call it a wave, began in late March, after a short-lived spring reprieve in local transmission. Before they started climbing again, case rates got as low as 6.3 per 100,000 people on March 25.

But unlike the sudden winter surge, which was fueled by the omicron variant, the recent wave of new cases was far more incremental, said Baldwin.

Katherine Pack, health program manager for the county's epidemiology team, said state COVID-19 modeling suggests that virus transmission has stabilized. But community outbreaks continue to be reported and more cases associated with Memorial Day travel, events and gatherings are expected, she said.

Pack and Baldwin said the good news is that while rising case rates have resulted in more people testing positive at local hospitals, the number of COVID-19 cases in Sonoma County warranting intensive care treatment has remained low.

Pack said hospitalizations tend to peak about two weeks after case rates peak. As of Monday, the hospital data available, there were 43 COVID -19 positive hospitalized with 5 in the ICU.

“We have not observed the same level of disease severity or negative outcomes in terms of hospitalizations and deaths as in earlier case increases — the number of COVID positive patients in the ICU has not yet surpassed 5 this wave,” Pack said in an email. “While the Omicron subvariants are more transmissible than earlier variants, research suggests they are not associated with greater disease severity.”

As of Tuesday, three people have died in May after contracting COVID-19. Public health officials on Tuesday reported the latest COVID-related death, a woman between 75 and 85 who died on May 18. She was fully vaccinated with an underlying health condition.

The pandemic’s local death toll stands at 493.

Health officials reminded local residents that COVID-19 is still spreading throughout the community, and likely at much higher rates that what is officials reported, due to the proliferation of rapid antigen testing.

“The county of Sonoma and the state of California still strongly recommend the use of masks and I would say especially indoors,” Baldwin said. “Especially any place where there’s going to be a lot of people and you’re not going to be able to have a fair amount of space around you, places that aren’t ventilated.”

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