Any lull that occurred over the weekend had evaporated by Tuesday as California reported its second-most deaths from COVID-19 in a single day and more than 2,000 new cases.
The Bay Area had its two-day streak without a fatality broken, too, with its death toll ticking up 3.5%, on pace with the state’s increase Tuesday. California ended the day with exactly 3,400 deaths on record from the virus, according to data compiled by this news organization, including 406 in the Bay Area. The 116 reported deaths Tuesday was one shy of the state’s single-day record.
New deaths statewide had even slowed down over the previous three days. The total deaths were the fewest in a 72-hour period since the first week of April. But that came to a screeching halt Tuesday.
For the eighth time since the outbreak began — and the third time in the past week – county health officials around the state added more than 2,000 new cases to the cumulative count, raising the total to 83,668. The seven-day average of new cases in the Bay Area was 7% higher Tuesday than it was a week ago, as the total here climbed to 11,429.
After weeks of declining nearly every day, hospitalizations in the region also rose more significantly than they had in over a month. The Bay Area had cut its hospitalizations in half since the second week of April — to their lowest levels since March — but that number rose by nearly 15% on Tuesday, to 265 total across the region’s 10 counties.
Alameda County, where hospitalizations also rose again Monday after a brief dip, has nearly twice the number of patients in hospital beds and intensive care units as any other county in the Bay Area. But the 87 hospitalized there Monday — 42 in ICUs — were still a fraction of the five leading counties in Southern California, which account for 80% of the state’s total hospitalizations.
Those five counties — Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego — also accounted for 76% of the new cases in the state and 83% of Tuesday’s deaths, despite comprising just over half the state’s population. Another Southern California county, Tulare, reported its most new cases Tuesday and the third-most for the day in the state (101).
For the second straight week, the Bay Area’s largest spike in deaths came on a Tuesday, fueled by San Mateo County. It added nine to its death toll, after adding nine the previous Tuesday, too. But it has generally only reported new fatalities one day per week.
Each of the past two Tuesdays have ended with 14 new fatalities around the region, amounting to its fourth-deadliest days of the outbreak.
