California Hits Record High COVID Test Positivity Rate at 22%

California has hit a new record for positivity rates in coronavirus testing, reaching 22% on January 5, meaning that more than one in five residents who took a COVID-19 test were positive for the virus.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday:

California marked a pandemic high for positive coronavirus test results on Monday with more than 1 out of 5 tests showing COVID-19 infection, as hospitals braced for an even greater influx of new patients.

With Monday’s count, California surpassed 6 million cumulative coronavirus cases reported since the pandemic began. The state’s most recent seven-day average hit a rate of 22% positive results on Jan. 5, according to the most recent state data compiled by The Chronicle. That marks a substantial increase over California’s previous seven-day high of 17.1% recorded during last year’s winter surge and is dramatically up from 5.4% just two weeks ago.

But the state’s actual positive rate may be much higher: Testing sites across California and the Bay Area report staffing shortages and laboratory delays in processing results, due to the surge driven by the highly contagious omicron variant of the virus. Nor does the rate take into account the results of at-home tests, which are increasingly harder to find and are not typically reported to health officials.

The surge is reaching even rural areas like Sonoma County, which has advised residents to shelter in place for 30 days, and the state expects to see record hospitalizations by the beginning of February, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

California’s surge comes despite some of the most restrictive measures in the nation, including a statewide indoor mask mandate.

However, Newsom, like other Democratic governors, is not shutting the state down completely — perhaps because the public would resist such measures, or perhaps because the political desire to inflict maximum damage on the incumbent presidential administration is no longer as acute, given that Donald Trump has been replaced by Joe Biden in the Oval Office for a year.

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). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent 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.