California has hit another major milestone in its fight against COVID-19, with all of the state’s residents now living in areas with a “low” community transmission level for the first time since last fall. This puts California’s 58 counties in line with approximately 93% of others across the U.S. that meet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s metrics for the same category, as the country continues to make progress against the virus.
The U.S. reported 133,521 new COVID-19 cases last week, marking a 44% decline from a month ago, and the lowest weekly figure since July 2021, just before the arrival of the delta variant spurred a surge. Hospitalizations have also reached their lowest rate since last summer. The seven-day average for new admissions was down 29% — 2,477 a day versus 3,468 last month.
However, confirmed COVID deaths nationwide rose slightly last week, claiming the lives of about 294 people every day compared to 331 per day a month ago.
The steady downward march of COVID locally mirrors national trends. California reported 2,083 new daily cases, or about 5 per 100,000 residents, compared to 3,721 cases per day, or 7.3 per 100,000, a month ago. The state’s seven-day rolling coronavirus test positivity rate has fallen to 5% from 6.4% over the same period, while the daily average of COVID patients in California hospitals has dropped by 34% to 1,823 from 2,763. However, COVID deaths have risen to 20 per day on average, up from 15 in February.
The CDC estimates that the XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant makes up approximately 90.2% of circulating lineages for the second consecutive week. Its offspring XBB.1.5.1 strain, which the agency started tracking as a variant of concern earlier this month, was sequenced in 2.4% of cases. The newly disaggregated XBB.1.9.1 is on the rise nationwide at 2.5%.