San Mateo County Reports 295 New Coronavirus Cases

San Mateo CA

09 December, 2020

9:41 PM

Description

SAN MATEO COUNTY, CA — San Mateo County Health reported 295 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, adding to a total of 16,666. No new deaths were reported Wednesday, the total stood at 177. There were 88 confirmed COVID-19 hospital patients Wednesday, with 66 in intensive care unit beds filled. In neighboring Santa Clara County, there were only 31 intensive care unit beds remaining in the county — less than 10 percent of the total capacity. Three hospitals, O'Connor Hospital in San Jose, St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy and Regional Medical Center in San Jose, completely ran out of beds Wednesday. "This is absolutely the worst we have seen by an order of magnitude. We are in a much worse state right now than we were in the summer or the spring," Dr. Ahmad Kamal, Santa Clara County Director of Healthcare Preparedness, told NBC Bay Area. In slightly lighter news, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that the state would be receiving its first batch of vaccines in the coming days. "We're prepared to begin Phase 1a to health care workers & nursing home residents safely, effectively & efficiently," he tweeted Wednesday. "We also expect 672k Moderna doses this month. Wide distribution is further away but hope is on the horizon." Up to 24,000 health care workers in San Mateo County will be first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, with the first shipment to the county expected to arrive next week or sooner, health officials said. Chief of Health Louise Rogers and Dr. Anand Chabra - one of the county's medical directors who oversees the vaccination program - discussed the vaccine's timeline during the county Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday. "We know that we're getting six boxes of the Pfizer vaccine probably next week, so that's just under 6,000 doses. It's a pretty small shipment," Chabra said. "Towards the end of December, we'll receive somewhere on the order of six to seven times as much of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine, assuming both get approved by the FDA." San Francisco is expected to receive 12,000 coronavirus vaccines next week, the city's first allocation from the state and federal government, the city's director of public health said Wednesday. The city expects to begin receiving doses Tuesday of the vaccine developed by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer once it is approved for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to Dr. Grant Colfax. Under the state's vaccination prioritization plan, Colfax said the city would focus first on getting vaccines to employees and others at acute care facilities like hospitals and some nursing homes. Widespread vaccine access could be available by the spring. Bay Area counties moved to reopen playgrounds after California officials reversed course Wednesday on shutting them down in regions under a stay-at-home order. The state's order, announced last Thursday, drew swift backlash from parents, experts and officials who said there is little evidence that COVID-19 is spread at outdoor playgrounds and that playgrounds are important for children's health. The state's reversal was widely celebrated by parents and legislators on social media Wednesday. The move is being adopted by Bay Area counties that enacted the restrictions in the state's order in recent days even though counties had not yet dropped below a level of open intensive care unit beds that would have triggered the order to take effect in the region. California's average number of new coronavirus cases per day has more than doubled over the last two weeks, one of the state's top health officials said Tuesday. The state recorded 23,272 cases Tuesday and has averaged 23,503 new cases per day over the last seven days, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said during a news conference Tuesday. On Wednesday, California reported 1,446,885 cases and 20,396 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The United States had 15,379,674 cases of coronavirus as of Wednesday and 20,396 deaths. There have been 15,379,574 cases globally and 1,567,706 deaths. Bay City News and Patch Editors Kat Schuster and Gideon Rubin contributed to this report. Don't miss updates about the coronavirus in California as they are announced. Sign up for Patch news alerts and newsletters.