The state of California just overtook New York for the most cumulative coronavirus cases, and broke its one-day record for new cases with 12,807 in one 24-hour period. And over 500 new cases were just added in two East Bay counties.
California crossed the albeit artificial threshold on Wednesday of 413,000 confirmed cases, surpassing the total number in New York State — where new case numbers have declined significantly in the last two months along with the rest of the northeast. California's total stands at 414,214 as of this writing.
The Bay Area's confirmed case count has also been swiftly on the rise, adding over 1,000 new cases per day for the last four days. Today alone saw triple-digit upticks in Alameda, Contra Costa, and Santa Clara counties, with new case totals of 260, 271, and 275 respectively. And hospitalizations in the Bay Area of confirmed and suspected COVID patients currently stand at 942 — more than double the number at the beginning of July.
As ABC 7 reports, Governor Gavin Newsom tried to downplay the milestone of surpassing New York's total, saying, "We're a state the size of 21 states combined," and pointing out that New York still has a far higher per capita rate of infection. He continued that "it's not surprising now in some respects, as we began to reopen key sectors of our economy, people continue to mix and people continue to come in close contact with others that may have contracted this disease, that our numbers will start to go up in total."
"Nonetheless," Newsom said, "it's a sober reminder of why we are taking things as seriously as we are. A sober reminder of why we put in that mask mandate here in the state of California, and a reminder of why we modified our opening."
A more alarming figure in many ways is that after a week of averaging a percent-positive rate of 7.6% — i.e. the percentage of people being tested who turned up COVID-positive — the last 24 hours saw a rate of 10%, with over 12,800 cases out of 127,000 tests performed.
35 out of California's 58 counties are now on the state's watch list and therefore under stricter public-health orders. Those 35 counties, which now include Butte County to the northeast of the Bay Area, represent 91 percent of the state's population.
