California 7 Day Case Rate Falls, Positivity Falls, Hospitalizations Trend Downward

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As Sonoma County grapples with its own coronavirus spread, the state of California is reporting some good news this week.

In the past week, both the number of cases found, and the overall percentage of positive cases reported has been dropping. Those are key indicators that recent actions to limit indoor business and crack down on gatherings may be having an impact.

As of the start of the week, the 7 day average of new cases is 7,554. This is down from 9,397 in the prior 7 day period. The two week average of 8,476 daily cases is also down from the prior two week average.

In summary, after rising rapidly since the 2nd week of June, cases are now falling, despite a near constant rate of testing.

Another key indicator is the positivity rate. This rate is independent of the number of tests performed. The rate has fallen steadily in the last two weeks, dropping almost a full point.

The R-Effective rate, or the average number of persons an infected person in the state can be expected to transmit the virus to, has been falling since peaking in late June. This rate is considered by epidemiologists to be an important indicator of virus spread. Although the rate peaked near 1.2 in June (indicating virus spread was occuring), the rate has fallen below 1 (considered an indicator of stable conditions).

Hospitalizations are also dropping across the state. The number of hospitalizations is down by 1000 from the peak in late July.

Despite this seemingly good news, the state death rate continues to rise. Experts say this measure lags several weeks behind others and reflects conditions and spread as of 3-4 weeks ago. State health officials are cautiously optimistic this number will trend downward in the coming weeks.