COVID-19 claimed three more lives in Santa Clara County in the past 24 hours, raising the countywide death toll to 16.
Health officials late Tuesday morning also reported an additional 54 confirmed cases in the county, bringing its total to 375, the most in the Bay Area.
Dr. Sara Cody, the county’s director of public health, provided the update in a Board of Supervisor’s meeting Tuesday morning. She did not release additional details on the patients’ age or any underlying health issues they may have had.
One-third of those confirmed with the virus in Santa Clara County, 125 people, have been hospitalized and 13 are in the intensive-care unit.
“The severity level of cases we’re confirming is still quite high,” Cody said.
Despite shelter-in-place orders that went into effect a week ago, the numbers continue to rise across the Bay Area. That’s because the cases being reported now reflect the transmission that was happening up to two weeks ago.
“Our case counts are rising and we anticipate they will continue to do so,” Cody said. “It’s hard to understand where we are in the epidemic curve for a number of reasons.”
Six people in the county have now died in the past two days and the number of cases has nearly doubled since Friday.
