More California counties exit CDC’s ‘high’ level for COVID-19 as summer surge eases

Coronavirus infection and hospitalization rates continue to fall in California, leading the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to downgrade risk levels this week for several counties in the state’s Central Valley.

The California Department of Public Health in a Friday update reported the statewide case rate for COVID-19 at 21.9 per 100,000, down 17% in the past week.

The latest test positivity rate is 10%, down from 10.5% one week earlier and from July’s peak of 16.2%. The state’s positivity is at its lowest point since mid-June.

CDPH on Friday reported 3,143 virus patients in California hospital beds, a 12% drop from one week earlier. The latest tally includes 387 in intensive care units, down 10% in the past week.

Transmission rates in California climbed from late March through early July, state health data show, as contagious subvariants of omicron such as BA.2, BA.4 and BA.5 displaced previously dominant variants.

As of a Friday update from the CDC on COVID-19 variant proportions, BA.5 and its sister variants BA.4 and BA.4.6 combined for 99.8% of recent cases nationwide, and the same percentage for the region that includes California.

CDC classifies 7 California counties in ‘high’ level

Seven California counties — down from 14 last week — remained in the CDC’s “high” community level for COVID-19 danger as of Thursday’s weekly update: Imperial, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, Monterey and Ventura. The CDC calls for masking in public indoor settings in counties classified in the high level.

The counties departing the high level this week were Fresno, Humboldt, San Benito, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tuolumne and Yuba. All returned to the CDC’s medium community level. Imperial was the only California county this week to revert from medium to high.

Twenty-nine counties, including the four-county capital region of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer and Yolo, as well as Los Angeles, are now in the CDC’s medium community level.

The state’s remaining 22 counties are in the CDC’s low level, including the Bay Area counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco and San Mateo; Amador, Colusa, Nevada, Sutter, Tehama and Yuba counties in Northern California; and Riverside County in Southern California.

Community level assignments have improved across the state as case and hospital admission numbers have steadily declined since about mid-July across most of the state.

Are omicron-targeted vaccine boosters coming soon?

Pfizer and Moderna filed applications with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week seeking authorization to give “bivalent” COVID-19 booster vaccines specifically targeted toward the omicron strains, including currently dominant BA.4 and BA.5.

With the FDA reviewing the new boosters, and a key CDC advisory panel meeting Sept. 1-2, omicron-targeted vaccine boosters could be distributed as early as next month.

Second booster doses in the U.S. are currently limited to those ages 50 and older or with certain health conditions. First booster doses are recommended for everyone 5 and older.

State vaccination data show that 72% of all Californians have received their “primary series” of a COVID-19 vaccine – two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. But only 59% have received their primary series and at least one booster.

That means more than 12 million Californians have been vaccinated but are not boosted, according to CDPH.

Nearly two years into the vaccination campaign, inoculation rates continue to vary widely by geographic region.

The six counties with the highest booster rates — San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa, all in the Bay Area — all have more than 70% of residents vaccinated and boosted. In 32 of the state’s 58 counties, fewer than 60% are vaccinated and boosted. In 13 counties, fewer than half have had a booster.