‘We’re entering the unknown:’ Here’s what happened when these N. California counties reopened
California is entering what Gov. Gavin Newsom this week ominously called “the unknown.”
Just days after the governor green-lit most of the state’s counties for yet another round of business reopenings, remote Lassen County announced it was closing businesses back up after four residents tested positive for COVID-19. Until the announcement, Lassen was the only county in California without a single reported case of the new coronavirus.
Is Lassen an anomaly or an omen?
The question is a frightening one. Faced with historic unemployment and mounting pressure, Newsom has moved in the past week to allow counties to reopen their economies even further. Forty-eight of the state’s 58 counties are reopening hair salons, barbers, restaurants, stores, and churches, all with some restrictions.
Some infectious disease experts and epidemiologists say that’s too much too soon, and could trigger a resurgence of infections worse than the first round, which has now taken 3,900 lives in California.
A McClatchy data review of the first 22 counties that were allowed to reopen restaurants and stores on May 12, 13 or 14 show worrisome early signs. The number of new cases and deaths in those counties grew faster in the two weeks after businesses were cleared for reopening than they had in the preceding two weeks.
▪ In the two weeks before the reopenings, there were 82 new cases and no new deaths.
▪ In the two weeks after the reopenings, there were 147 new cases and four new deaths.
Another potentially worrisome data point: Hospitalizations, considered a more-useful measuring stick than infections, grew by more than 60 percent in those counties. The beginning and ending numbers, though, were small: 13 hospitalizations at the start, 21 hospitalizations two weeks later.
The tiny sample size and the brief period of time make it too early to draw any conclusions, according to two epidemiologists consulted this week by the Sacramento Bee.
Robert Kim-Farley at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and Andrew Noymer of the University of California, Irvine, say a better picture should form after the third and fourth weeks, given that the coronavirus has a sometimes-hidden gestation period of up to two weeks.
For that reason, any deaths would need to be considered as having begun with an infection two or more weeks in the past.
Noymer said Lassen County is erring on the side of caution, but not necessarily overreacting. “The whole point is that we are all in unfamiliar territory.”
The McClatchy review of state health data found mixed signs. The initial 22 reopened counties, for instance, were still in better shape after they reopened than the rest of the state as a whole:
▪ There were only 8 new cases per 100,000 residents in those 22 counties from May 11 to May 25, compared to 72 new cases per 100,000 residents elsewhere.
▪ The total number of positive cases in those 22 counties grew by 28 percent in those two weeks, less than the 40-percent growth in cases in other counties in the state. Deaths in the rural counties grew at a lower rate as well.
It may be hard for the governor and state health officials to draw significant conclusions from the first set of counties to reopen, even over a longer period of study.
For one, the counties in question are all largely rural and lightly populated, and were among the least affected by the virus from the start. Bigger, denser areas such as hard-hit Los Angeles County have not yet reopened many businesses.
That uncertainty has some critics, including Santa Clara Public Health Officer Sara Cody, sounding the alarm after Newsom’s announcement that in-person church services can resume, and that barbershops and hair salons can open.
“The pace at which the state has made these modifications is concerning to me,” she told her county’s leaders. Santa Clara is one of 11 California counties that have refrained from reopening businesses.
Cody is among those who advise allowing more time — up to 21 days — to see how each new reopening phase settles in before moving forward. “The state modifications are being made without a real understanding of the consequences of what the last move has been.”.
The McClatchy data review suggests, if anything, that a spike can occur any place and at any time.
Del Norte County went from 3 cases to 20, and county health officials said their health tracing team had found a few case clusters.
Cases in Glenn County rose from 6 to 12. Mendocino suffered a spike related to a small church gathering. Butte County saw cases grow from 19 to 37.
But six of the counties — Placer, Calaveras, Mariposa, Nevada, Plumas and Tuolumne — saw cases grow by less than 10 percent, if at all, in the two weeks measured by McClatchy.
Other counties, including Yuba, Sutter, El Dorado and Nevada, increased their testing capacities, which could contribute to the 35 percent increase in cases from May 11 to May 25. No new deaths were reported.
This story was originally published May 28, 2020 at 8:51 AM with the headline "‘We’re entering the unknown:’ Here’s what happened when these N. California counties reopened."