A small increase in the number of people hospitalized for coronavirus treatment in Santa Clara County in the past five weeks probably resulted from relaxation of restrictions in the middle of last month, county health officer Dr. Sara Cody said in a Board of Supervisors meeting Monday.
“We are beginning to see a little bit of an uptick in our hospitalizations which likely reflects the easing we did in the middle of May,” Cody told the board.
Meanwhile, a UC Berkeley infectious-diseases specialist cautions against further easing until officials have a better understanding of the effects of relaxing restrictions.
On May 22, county officials cited “substantial progress” in slowing Covid-19 spread, and approved resumption of some business and personal activities including curb-side retail pickup, manufacturing, warehousing, visiting outdoor historical sites, and car parades, with limitations. However, shelter in place restrictions remain in effect and residents are encouraged to continue social distancing practices.
County health data show an increase in coronavirus hospitalizations started after May 31 when 38 people were hospitalized, rising to 73 by Monday, an increase of 35 people.
Cody did not elaborate on the data. The county did not immediately respond to questions.
Coronavirus hospitalizations in Santa Clara County had been in declining steadily since a peak of around 250 patients in early April. That number fell to a new low on May 31 with 38 patients. The current number still remains significantly lower than the count of about 100 in the days immediately preceding the May 22 health order easing restrictions.
County health data show no “surge” beds have been used for coronavirus patients in the past five weeks, indicating hospitals have had sufficient room to handle the increase.
If hospitalizations occurred because restrictions were relaxed, the likeliest victims would be people who were allowed to resume work in situations where they came into contact with many people, said UC Berkeley infectious-diseases specialist John Swartzberg. “You’d see it in the workers rather than the consumers. The person that may be selling something at the curb-side encounters 30 people in a day — much higher risk,” Swartzberg said, adding that employees working closely together in a manufacturing facility, for example, would also have an elevated risk.
Swartzberg said he considered the uptick in hospital cases “disconcerting but not alarming,” and that he would like to see whether hospitalization numbers continue climbing over the next week. The Bay Area is seeing some flattening of coronavirus case numbers, but also some slight but troubling increases, Swartzberg said. “On top of that we have the concern that two weeks from the beginning of the peaceful protests, that we’ll see more cases,” Swartzberg said. “Now’s not the time to continue to open up more. Now’s the time we should be pausing, at the worst, and at the best retracting a little bit until we see where we’re going.”
It can take up to two weeks for a person infected with coronavirus to begin experiencing symptoms, epidemiologists believe. Late last month, Cody said Santa Clara County would continue reopening sectors of the economy piece by piece, waiting at least two weeks after each relaxation to see whether hospitalizations and deaths went up.
“If we make a change and we don’t pause to see what the impact has been, then we’re blind and we cannot see what our next action may do,” Cody said in a video posted to the county public health department’s Facebook page.
Swartzberg said he’s learned during the pandemic not to bet against Cody. “She tends to be right a lot more often than she’s wrong,” he said.
San Mateo County on June 6 issued a similar order to Santa Clara’s May 22 order, and that county’s coronavirus hospitalizations increased slightly after the order, from 53 on June 4 to 58 on Monday. In San Francisco County, hospitalizations from the virus stood at 62 when officials allowed similar easing of restrictions May 17, and the number as of Friday was 36, after a fairly steady though somewhat bumpy decline.
