The winter COVID-19 surge in California continues to grow.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced nearly 40,000 new cases Monday, with an average of 41,000 new cases being reported each day in the last week.
The test positivity rate continues to fluctuate between 13.5% to 14%, significantly more than the low single digit positivity rate that the state saw at its best point in the pandemic.
Hospitalizations increased by 6% over the last two weeks, less than in previous weeks, which Gov. Newsom called a cause for some cautious optimism.
"That’s among the smallest increases over a two-week period we’ve seen in some time," said the governor. However, he added that with many hospitals and ICUs completely full, "we’re not overly enthusiastic."
That continual increase in hospitalizations has pushed ICU capacity in the Bay Area down to just 0.7%, which means that the stay at home order is not likely to be lifted for several more weeks.
Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley regions are both still at 0% ICU capacity, which means beds are only available in surge units.
Gov. Newsom said the state is continuously working to ramp up its vaccination efforts. 783,000 vaccine doses have been administered so far, and the state aims to administer another one million doses by the weekend.
But that leaves many of the state's nearly 2.5 million doses still waiting in storage, demonstrating what Newsom called a "last mile, last inch" problem.
The state has approved more categories of healthcare workers to be able to administer vaccines including dentists and EMTs, and plans to expand or convert testing sites into vaccination sites.
Gov. Newsom reiterated that while the state is currently still working to vaccine people in the Phase 1A group (healthcare workers and long term care facilities), providers are being encouraged to administer vaccines to people outside of the group if the alternative is letting doses spoil.
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