COVID updates: California cases tick up; more details on Sacramento’s child vaccine rollout

After about two months of decline, coronavirus activity in California is showing early signs of rising again as winter approaches.

The state’s test positivity rate has increased in the past week from 2% to 2.5%, according to California Department of Public Health data updated Thursday, its highest reading since Sept. 25. During the summer surge fueled by the highly infectious delta variant, the rate jumped from 2% to 7% in about a month.

The daily case rate is flattening around 12 per 100,000 residents, after having steadily declined from about 34 per 100,000 in mid-August, state data show.

In Sacramento County, rates have stalled above the state averages.

The daily case rate has fluctuated between about 15 and 17 per 100,000 throughout October, according to the county health department’s online data dashboard. Test positivity, which peaked at 9.9% during the summer surge, fell to 3.6% by early October but has since crept back to 4.1%.

“The case rate has been ticking up a little bit,” county health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye said on a Thursday call with reporters. “Our initial look at the numbers does indicate that some of that might be due to the recent outbreak we’re dealing with in both our jails, as well as some increase in school-age children.”

Last week, local health officials and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office reported an outbreak of nearly 70 COVID-19 infections: 32 at the main jail downtown and 37 at Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center.

In a weekly update Wednesday, the Sheriff’s Office reported 75 cases currently active — 34 at the main jail and 41 at RCCC near Elk Grove.

Hospitalizations have also hit a plateau, statewide and in the Sacramento area, state data show. The virus patient total in hospital beds has fluctuated between about 175 and 200 in Sacramento County, and between about 85 and 100 in nearby Placer County, since early October.

Kasirye said most recent hospitalizations have been coming in residents between ages 40 and 60.

“Many of them do have underlying medical conditions,” the health officer said. “They are vulnerable, and many of them are not vaccinated.”

A CDPH dashboard showed that for the most recent week on record, unvaccinated Californians were about seven times more likely to test positive, 10 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 and 15 times more likely to die from the virus than those who are fully vaccinated.

“We do have some concern that we are going into the holiday season, where there are a lot of gatherings,” and those gatherings are increasingly held indoors due to colder weather, Kasirye said.

California’s worst surge to date in the nearly 20-month pandemic started last November and lasted into January. On one hand, that surge began before vaccines were launched. But on the other, the state now has to contend with the far more infectious delta variant, as well as businesses and school campuses open with far fewer restrictions than last winter.

“We have to maintain that discipline, that focus, but we’ve got to be mindful of the winter months and safely enjoy the holidays together,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday, after receiving a booster vaccine dose at a clinic in Alameda County.

The county and state have issued guidance for safely celebrating holidays, including Halloween this coming weekend.

But Kasirye said the main emphasis is still to get more people vaccinated.

When will child vaccine clinics start in Sacramento?

Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is expected to be authorized for use in children ages 5 to 11 as early as next week, which would expand California’s eligible pool by about 3.5 million residents.

State Health and Human Services Director Dr. Mark Ghaly said this week that California expects to receive about 1.2 million child-sized doses in the coming days.

Sacramento County vaccine program coordinator Rachel Allen said county-run clinics for young children likely would not start until the week of Nov. 8. But Allen also said that for their own clinics, school districts are expected to partner directly with CDPH rather than the county.

“The rollout of this vaccine is going to look different,” Allen said Thursday. “It is a different formulation. It’s different packaging of the Pfizer vaccine.

“We do want to take time to make sure we have training, that we get this rollout right.”

Some of that additional training may be necessary, Allen explained, simply because it can be more difficult to administer doses to children as young as 5 than to teenagers.

Allen said that after the initial shipments, “ordering will open and we’re told there’s not going to be a limit.”

“From my understanding, (supply) should not be an issue,” she said.

Though Kasirye said spread among children may be fueling transmission, Nick Mori of the health office’s schools team said there have not been any recent major outbreaks inflating the numbers.

Kaisrye said children over the past month have made up about 23% of new infections, a trend that has continued since shortly after the start of the 2021-22 school year.

County epidemiology program manager Jamie White noted that this could largely be due to children under 12 not yet being vaccinated as well as comparatively low rates among eligible juveniles.

In Sacramento County, about 53% of currently eligible children are fully vaccinated and 59% have had at least one dose. That compares to 70% fully and 77% at least partially vaccinated among county adults, state vaccination data show.

For eligible children statewide, the rates were 59% fully and 67% at least partially vaccinated, according to CDPH data updated Thursday; for all eligible Californians, the rates were 73% and 81%, respectively.