The Los Angeles Post

State Officials Announce Latest COVID-19 Facts

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Regional Stay at Home Order Goes into Effect for Bay Area Region Today at 11:59 p.m.

SACRAMENTO – The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) today announced the most recent statistics on COVID-19, including data on intensive care unit (ICU) capacity across the state. Based on ICU data, the Bay Area will enter the Regional Stay at Home Order today, December 17, at 11:59 p.m. Three other regions, San Joaquin Valley, Southern California, and Greater Sacramento are already under the order. More than 50% of the state’s ICU capacity is filled with patients who have COVID-19.

 

Regional Stay at Home Order

Regions must remain under the Regional Stay at Home Order for at least three weeks and will be eligible to exit the order and return to the Blueprint for a Safer Economy only if ICU capacity projections for the following month are above or equal to 15%.

 

The dates that regions will be eligible to exit are:

  • San Joaquin: December 28
  • Southern California: December 28
  • Greater Sacramento: January 1
  • Bay Area: January 8

 

Current available ICU capacity by region:

  • Bay Area: 13.1%
  • Greater Sacramento Region: 11.3%
  • Northern California: 25.8%
  • San Joaquin Valley: 0.7%
  • Southern California: 0.0%

 

See region map. Read the full Regional Stay Home Order, Supplement to the Order, and frequently asked questions.

 

Statewide COVID-19 Data as of Today:

 

  • California has 1,723,362 confirmed cases to date. Numbers may not represent true day-over-day change as reporting of test results can be delayed.

  • There were 52,281 newly recorded confirmed cases Wednesday. Numbers do not represent true day-over-day change as these results include cases from prior to yesterday. Today’s numbers are slightly higher due to the implementation of an auto-processing feature to track report the large volume of COVID-19 cases. In collaboration with counties, on December 13, the state began automatically processing positive cases reported by laboratories and these cases are reflected in our public reporting. Typically, local public health departments receive cases into an inbox and manually process those cases, however, with high transmission rates, this has become increasingly difficult. The auto processing feature ensures that local public health officials can quickly determine when cases occurred, which gives us all a better sense of COVID-19’s trajectory.

  • The 7-day positivity rate is 12.8% and the 14-day positivity rate is 11.5%.

  • There have been 28,456,358 tests conducted in California. This represents an increase of 306,768 over the prior 24-hour reporting period.

  • As case numbers continue to rise in California, the total number of individuals who will have serious outcomes will also increase. There have been 21,860 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic.