For much of the summer, levels of COVID-19 infections in California and the Bay Area were high.
Friday’s update from the California Department of Public Health showed the test positivity rate reached 14.3%, up more than two percentage points from the previous week, the highest positivity rate in a year.
After three months of rising positivity rates, they are rapidly approaching the record-high positivity rate of 16% in July 2022 during the summer outbreak.
While testing data is no longer available at the local level, Santa Clara County sewage has shown high levels of the virus circulating for weeks, with “high” concentrations in all four sewage basins: Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, San Jose and Gilroy.
High levels of the virus have also been found in sewage in Contra Costa County, and the county health department urged residents this week to wear masks in crowded indoor situations, “especially those at high risk of severe illness if infected.”
“Masks are an effective tool in reducing the spread of the virus,” Contra Costa County Health Officer Dr. Ori Zvieli said in a statement. “Now is the time. Our health care system is not currently severely impacted by COVID-19, and it is our goal to keep it that way.”
Dr. John Schwartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology at the University of California, Berkeley, said he thinks Contra Costa Health’s recommendation is “great advice.”
“We’re still seeing too many people hospitalized and dying,” Schwartzberg said, pointing out that the annual number of COVID-19 deaths still exceeds the number of deaths during a typical flu season.
The Contra Costa Health Department says the current long-term outbreak is due to a “particularly contagious” FLiRT variant that is currently spreading in the western part of the country.
“There hasn’t been a long respite from the winter surge,” Schwartzberg said, and he attributes the stubborn rise in the virus this spring and summer to a series of mutant strains: “The Omicron variants continue to spawn new variants that are more transmissible and have greater immune evasion capabilities.”
First published: August 9, 2024, 4:00 PM
