California Covid Picture Still Improving

[canyonwalker]

The Covid picture in California continues to improve. What do I mean by picture? Literally I mean the rates of new Covid infections, the rates of people hospitalized with Covid, and the loosening of state restrictions based on this evidence. But I also mean literally a picture. In this case the state chart updated yesterday, in its weekly Tuesday update:


[Link: covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/]

When you compare this chart to last week's update the differences may not be readily apparent. They're both just a mush of colors, right? But there are several key improvements in that mush. Here are Five Things:

1. Now almost 50% of the state is in the Orange Tier, the second lowest risk category. One week ago only 10.5% of the state was orange or better. That's a huge improvement.
2. Much of this gain came from Los Angeles and Orange counties reaching Orange Tier. Just those two counties represent a population of about 14 million.
3. Among other counties improving from Red to Orange are two near me, Alameda and Santa Cruz.
4. Purple Tier, the highest risk category, dropped from 6.3% of the state population one week ago to 2.7% today.
5. One of the chief underlying metrics that drives these policy changes is the statewide new case rate. It dropped from 5.5 cases per 100,000 population last week to 4.8 this week. This is lower than we've seen in 10 months, since before the 2020 summer surge.

An interesting note about #5 is that while California is still improving in key Covid metrics, the country as a whole is not. Nationwide, rates are actually up in the past week. Too many states are loosening restrictions too fast. They're acting on political fantasy, not factual reality. I continue to share these charts to show how California's policies are data driven.