When March started, Santa Clara County was the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in California.
But throughout the month, as the virus spread across the Golden State, and the tragic bottleneck of testing for the deadly COVID-19 virus eased, a new picture emerged: Southern California caught up to the Bay Area in a race nobody wants to win.
The interactive animated graphic above illustrates that dramatic shift.
By March 18, Los Angeles County – California’s most populous – had eclipsed Santa Clara County, with 192 confirmed case of the lethal virus. In a little over two weeks, LA’s numbers have spiked to more than 6,000 cumulative cases, five times as many as Santa Clara County.
By Monday, California had more than 16,300 cases. To see how cases have grown over the course of March in California’s hardest-hit counties, click on the start button (white arrow inside the black circle) on the bottom of the graphic. You can stop it to see the numbers on any given date.
Los Angeles reported 6,360 cases as of April 6 among the county’s 10.4 million residents.
San Diego is in second, reporting 1,404 cases among its 3.4 million residents as of April 6. Santa Clara County is now in third, reporting 1,224 cases among its nearly 2 million residents as of April 6.
Riverside County and Orange County were next, followed by Alameda, San Francisco, and San Mateo counties.
Check the latest tally of coronavirus cases and deaths in 10 Bay Area counties here, and see the data for each California county here.
