California Governor Gavin Newsom sounded an optimistic note Monday as he noted that coronavirus cases in the state have begun to fall again, after a spike that followed the George Floyd protests and early efforts at reopening the economy.
The Associated Press reported:
The average weekly number of positive tests is down by a fifth, to 7,764 from its peak of nearly 9,900 a week ago. The seven-day rate of tests coming back positive statewide had peaked at nearly 8% late last month but has fallen to 6.1%, he said, though the rate remains much higher in some hard-hit counties.
“It’s not where it needs to be, it is still too high, but again it is good to see this number trending down, not trending up,” he said.
Hospitalizations, which had recently ballooned by 50%, have also fallen over the last 14 days, Newsom said in his most upbeat briefing since the resurgence. The number of people in intensive care units because of coronavirus has also declined slightly.
Newsom credited a renewed lockdown on businesses, as well as increased public attention to social distancing practices and wearing masks.
His results — and his analysis — matched a report from the Los Angeles Times on Monday:
A Los Angeles Times analysis found that California has now experienced its first weekly reduction in new confirmed coronavirus cases for the first time in 12 weeks. For the seven-day period that ended Sunday, California reported 59,697 new coronavirus cases, a drop of 9% from the previous week of 65,634 cases, which was a pandemic record.
If the trends continue, it would mark a turning point after weeks of record hospitalizations that began in mid-June, the result of California starting to rapidly reopen the economy in May.
The San Francisco Bay Area has seen a recent spike in cases, despite doing everything “by the book.” But Southern California, which saw a spike earlier in the summer, seems to have turned the corner, public health officials said earlier this week.
Officials cautioned that the number of cases could increase again if people become less disciplined.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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