More people in California are hospitalized with COVID-19 than on any day since March 31, according to data released by the state Tuesday, July 20.
There are 2,164 patients with confirmed cases, including 552 people sick enough to be in intensive-care units. The numbers released Tuesday were contained in the state’s daily hospital survey conducted Monday.
Those have both more than doubled from the low points last month: There were 915 confirmed coronavirus patients hospitalized on June 12, and 218 in the state’s ICUs on June 6.
Here’s how those increases have played out by county.
Public health experts say the delta variant, which is more contagious than other forms of the coronavirus, is a main factor in the rise in hospitalizations. Some also cite California’s reopening June 15, when most restrictions on gatherings were lifted and fully vaccinated people were no longer required to wear masks in public. Cases and hospitalizations bottomed out just before that reopening date.
Medical workers are concerned that the increases mean another surge could be looming.
“Every physician or L.A. health provider is absolutely concerned,” Dr. Hector Castillo, a family medicine doctor affiliated with the California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles, said recently.
Still, California is in a better position now than it was last fall. Even though hospitalizations have doubled in less than a month, there are still fewer patients now than at the low point between last year’s summer and winter surges — and a fraction of the number of patients at the height of the winter surge that sent hospitals to the brink of a crisis. For about three weeks in December and January, more than 20,000 people statewide were confirmed infected with COVID-19.
Now, more than half of Californians are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus and almost 60% have received at least one dose. The vaccines have been shown to be highly effective at preventing infection, and vaccinated people who do get infected tend to have a less severe illness.
Los Angeles County officials reported in June that in the first six months vaccines were available, 98.7% of the people hospitalized with coronavirus and 99.8% of the people who died from the virus in L.A. County were unvaccinated.
