California is infected with 3 million coronaviruses.About 1 in 13 people in the state is infected

Los Angeles — California passed 3 million confirmed coronavirus cases on Tuesday — promising signs that a pandemic has peaked after months of spikes, and a recently identified variant of the virus A phenomenal milestone that arrived amid new concerns that it could add more fuel to wildfires.

The 3 million casemarks established through the Times survey of the county and city health departments show how widespread the coronavirus is throughout the most populous states in the United States.

Clearing that threshold means that one in thirteen Californians tested positive at some point during the pandemic. However, because many people infected with the virus have mild or no symptoms, authorities have long believed that the test could only capture a certain percentage of infected people.

Nevertheless, the number of documented cases is increasing rapidly. It took about 10 months for the state to reach one million confirmed cases, which occurred in mid-November. California suffered two million cumulative infections shortly before Christmas.

Now, just about four weeks later, the state has added a total of one million more proceedings.

Dr. Thomas Aragon, state public health officer and director of the California Public Health Service, said the case number “seriously reminds us that COVID-19 is widespread throughout California.” He added: “We all have to play our part by staying at home. We wear masks. We avoid gatherings, especially indoors. We wash our hands frequently and prevent them when qualified and available. Get vaccinated.

“Although there are some promising signs due to lower hospitalizations and case rates, California is relentlessly working on the fight against COVID-19,” Aragon said. .. “We can’t be satisfied because the vaccine is available.”

Pandemic’s latest wave slopes and ranges make California’s summer surge look like a speed bump.

At that time, the maximum number of infections reported daily reached about 13,000 across the state. Last week, California received an average of nearly 36,000 new cases per day, according to data compiled by The Times.

The rate is amazing, but it’s actually a bit down. It wasn’t long ago that the state saw nearly 45,000 cases a day.

The latest figures may have been affected by delays in Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend tests and data reports, but the coronavirus has leveled off, and California is apocalyptic after Christmas. Further evidence that the surge may have been avoided. Authorities’ warnings could overwhelm the state’s health care system.

In California, the number of people requiring hospitalization for COVID-19 has also leveled off and has declined slightly. According to the latest state data, 20,062 coronavirus-positive Californians were hospitalized as of Monday, a decrease of about 8% from a week ago.

The number of people sick enough to require intensive care also dropped to 4,693 as of Monday. This is a 3% decrease from the previous week.

Any decline, albeit small, has come as welcome news for California’s needy hospitals and healthcare professionals who have had to deal with the rapid and sustained increase in COVID-19 patient numbers since early November. I will.

“These are brilliant lights of hope,” said Dr. Mark Garry, California’s Secretary of Health and Welfare.

However, many ICUs throughout the state continue to be stressed. Intensive care units, in particular, have reported 0% availability over several weeks in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley. This does not mean that the beds are not open, but the hospital had to take important and even drastic steps to care for the most sick patients.

However, we hope that the decrease in daily case rates and the decrease in the proportion of test subjects found to be infected foresee a corresponding decrease in the number of COVID-19 patients who need to go to the hospital. I will. Another promising data point is that the modeled state-wide infection rate, or R effect, is currently below 1. That is, on average, people who test positive are less infected than the other one.

If R-effective is less than 1, the number of cases will gradually decrease.

“Fortunately, the COVID epidemic hasn’t spread in the state, but it’s declining. It’s a bit slower than we want,” said Ghaly.

Authorities warn that recent developments are fragile and the risk remains high. Nearly 34,000 Californians have died of COVID-19, and vaccine supplies are still inadequate. In most of Los Angeles County, people over the age of 65 have not been vaccinated, even though Governor Gavin Newsom announced last week that he was eligible.

“We are getting closer and closer to ending this pandemic, and collective action makes a difference in the deaths of more people,” LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a statement Monday. I did.

This is especially true if California is working on the existence of a new variant of the coronavirus. This includes what is known as B.1.1.7, which was first identified in the United Kingdom and is believed by scientists to be more contagious.

According to a recent report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, modeling can spread rapidly, so this variant “may expand the trajectory of the US pandemic in the coming months,” “March. It shows that it has the potential to become a “major variant of”. Control and prevention.

Another new coronavirus strain (called CAL.20C) may have contributed to the significant winter surge seen throughout Southern California, according to a recent study published by Cedars-Sinai.

“By December, the virus in Cedars Sinai patients, as well as 24% of all Southern California samples,” the researchers said in a statement that the strain was “almost non-existent in October.” 36.4% of the sample was determined to be strain. “

“The recent surge in COVID-19-positive cases in Southern California is consistent with the emergence of CAL.20C,” said Dr. Eric Vail, director of molecular pathology at Cedars-Sinai’s School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. I will.

Another coronavirus variant called L452R is also endemic in the state, with several outbreaks in Santa Clara County, including those that infect dozens of staff and 15 patients at Kaiser’s San Jose Medical Center. It has been confirmed in.

All coronavirus mutations carry the risk of altering the behavior of the virus in potentially harmful ways, Garry said. The state and its partners have detailed information on how widespread L452R is throughout California and what the mutants mean: “Infectious and pathogenic effects, disease severity, and disease severity, and If there is any impact on the effectiveness of the vaccine, he said.

“These variants emphasize the need to be vigilant. If there is variability in infectivity between this strain and the strains it has been dealing with for months. Will certainly affect the way we move forward, “he said.

According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the best infectious disease expert in the US government, mutations in the virus are not unexpected and often do not make a big difference.

“If you have a lot of viruses that are prevalent in your community, it means that you are infecting many people, you are replicating a lot, and when you replicate, you mutate.” He said during a virtual conversation with Newsom at the end of last month. “The overwhelming majority of mutations are irrelevant. They do not affect the important functioning of the virus.”

But he added, “Occasionally you get the mutation to do so” — looks like the case of the British variant. Still, scientists believe that infections of variants are unlikely to be fatal or ill, and there is no evidence that newly developed vaccines are ineffective against them.

However, given the ongoing risk of infection and the current relative shortage of vaccines, health officials say that the best way to control the infection is to wear a mask in public, which is often cited. It emphasizes adherence to preventive protocols. I meet with people outside the house, wash my hands regularly, and stay home when I’m sick.

Last week, some LA County officials hinted that they were considering potential new business restrictions to further stop the coronavirus epidemic.

County supervisor Hilda Solis said Tuesday that he was “considering all available tools,” but no additional steps were revealed.

“For example, we still know that there are many companies that may not be fully compliant and large companies that have hundreds of employees,” she said in a briefing. “We want them to be more compliant and there are tools available to do that. But at this point we all know that this new variant is here. I think you’re very very careful about what you have to do to keep it from spreading. “

The deployment of the COVID-19 vaccine is, of course, a cause of celebration, but authorities continue to warn that there is not enough available dose to inoculate everyone who wants the vaccine. ..

San Francisco’s public health department will run out of COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday. This is because the city quota has dropped significantly from a week ago and the dose that had to be discarded was not replaced.

Residents over the age of 65 can now be scheduled to be vaccinated in Los Angeles County, but authorities say how many older Angelenos can be vaccinated if supplies are limited. Said that it would be late.

“It’s always difficult in a shortage situation, but I’m grateful that we need to keep in mind to move forward as soon as possible to reach high-risk people. [vaccinated], And I think that’s what this strategy can do for us, “Feller said on Tuesday.

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