COVID-19 surge continues slow decline in California

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Coronavirus activity is gradually declining in California after having surged from about the beginning of April through mid-July, state health data show.

The California Department of Public Health on Tuesday reported the statewide test positivity rate for COVID-19 at 14.5%, down from a July 15 peak of 16.3%.

The latest daily case rate, of 40.7 per 100,000 residents, is down 10% in the past week.

And the number of COVID-positive patients in hospital beds across California fell to 4,654 as of Tuesday’s update, down from 4,862 one week earlier.

The current surge is fueled by contagious subvariants of omicron: the now-dominant BA.5, and its sister subvariant BA.4.

Positivity rates are now highest in parts of the San Joaquin Valley, including Merced at 22% positivity, Fresno County at 19.1% and Stanislaus at 18.4%; as well as some Southern California counties, including Riverside at 19.2%.

Los Angeles County last week scrapped a plan to return to an indoor mask mandate. Health officials said case and hospital numbers appeared to be stabilizing, though the county found itself classified for a third straight week in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “high” community level for COVID-19 danger, which would have triggered the local mask order until Thursday’s reversal.

California as of Tuesday sat fewer than 18,000 cases away from 10 million COVID-19 lab-confirmed infections since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, and will likely reach the eight-figure milestone later this week.

BA.5 and BA.4 made up 97% of cases nationwide and 98% for the region that includes California, each up from 95% the previous week, the CDC said in a weekly update Tuesday.

Health experts have said BA.5 and BA.4 are more contagious and better at reinfecting those recently infected with other variants, such as BA.2, which was California’s dominant strain this spring.