Average daily COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are continuing to fall in the U.S., an indicator that the omicron variant’s hold is weakening across the country.

Total confirmed cases reported Saturday barely exceeded 100,000, a sharp downturn from around 800,850 five weeks ago on Jan. 16, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

In New York, the number of cases went down by more than 50% over the last two weeks.

“I think what’s influencing the decline, of course, is that omicron is starting to run out of people to infect,” said Dr. Thomas Russo, professor and infectious disease chief at the University of Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

COVID-19 hospitalizations are down from a national seven-day average of 146,534 on Jan. 20 to 80,185 the week ending in Feb 13, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID data tracker.

Public health experts say they are feeling hopeful that more declines are ahead and that the country is shifting from being in a pandemic to an ‘endemic’ that is more consistent and predictable. However, many expressed concern that vaccine uptick in the U.S. has still been below expectations, concerns that are exacerbated by the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions.

Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine said Sunday that the downturn in case numbers and hospitalizations is encouraging. He agreed that it likely has a lot to do with herd immunity.

“There are two sides to omicron’s coin,” he said. “The bad thing is that it can spread to a lot of people and make them mildly ill. The good thing is it can spread to a lot of people and make them mildly ill, because in doing so, it has created a lot of natural immunity.”

However, Schaffner said it’s much too early to “raise the banner of mission accomplished.” As a public health expert, he said he’ll be more comfortable if the decline sustains itself for another month or two.

“If I have a concern, it’s that taking off the interventions, the restrictions, may be happening with a bit more enthusiasm and speed than makes me comfortable,” he said. “My own little adage is, better to wear the mask for a month too long, than to take the mask off a month too soon and all of a sudden get another surge.”

Officials in many states are cutting back on restrictions, saying they are moving away from treating the coronavirus pandemic as a public health crisis and instead shifting to policy focused on prevention.

During a Friday news conference, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox announced that the state would be transitioning into what he called a “steady state” model starting in April in which Utah will close mass testing sites, report COVID-19 case counts on a more infrequent basis and advise residents to make personal choices to manage the risk of contracting the virus.

“Now, let me be clear, this is not the end of COVID, but it is the end — or rather the beginning — of treating COVID as we do other seasonal respiratory viruses,” the Republican said.

Also on Friday, Boston lifted the city’s proof of vaccine policy, which required patrons and staff of indoor spaces to show proof of vaccination.

“This news highlights the progress we’ve made in our fight against Covid-19 thanks to vaccines & boosters,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said via Twitter.

Dr. Amy Gordon Bono, a Nashville primary care physician, said now is not the time to lessen vaccination efforts, but to double down on them. In the spring of 2021 when vaccines were becoming more readily available, the U.S. was “eager to declare COVID independence,” she said. Then came the delta and omicron surges.

Bono, who attended medical school at Tulane University in New Orleans, said the U.S. should approach COVID like hurricane season.

“You have to learn to live with COVID and you have to learn from it,” she said.

One challenge is that each region has a unique landscape, she said. In the American South, for example, many restrictions have been lifted for a while or never existed in the first place. Yet it’s also a region with relatively lower vaccination rates.

“We’ve suffered so much and if there’s a way to help appease future suffering, it’s having a more vaccinated community,” she said.

In Buffalo, Russo said he sees two possible future outcomes. In one, the U.S. experiences a fairly quiet spring and summer while immunity is still strong. He said in that scenario, it’s likely immunity will wane and there will be a bump of new cases in the cooler months during flu season, but hopefully not a severe surge.

In the second — the one concerning public health experts — a new variant evolves and evades the immunity wall that was built up from both omicron infections and vaccinations.

“Whether such a variant can evolve is the big question, right?” he said. “That is the concern that we’ll have to see through. Omicron was the first version of that, and there is this sort of adage that ‘well, over time, viruses evolve to be less virulent,’ but that’s not really true. Viruses evolve to be able to infect us.”

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The county’s case rate once again increased over the past 24 hours. On Monday, the case rate was 16.9, it has now gone up to 17.4.

The county is reporting a positivity rate of 9.3%.

There were no additional COVID-19 deaths reported across Riverside County. The county has a total to 4,667 COVID deaths.

There were also 113 recoveries reported over the past 24 hours. There are a total of 300,500 recoveries in the county.

There were 52 additional COVID-related hospitalizations over the past 24 hours. With today’s additions, the county now has 340 hospitalizations.

There were also 1 additional people admitted into the ICU. The total number of patients has grown to 74. Riverside County reached 50% of full vaccination among its eligible residents.

According to the county, 1,052,430 residents are full vaccinated.

A total of 1,217,295 residents, or 57.9%, are either partially or fully vaccinated.

COVID vaccine clinics are open across Riverside County for all residents 16 and older. You can schedule an appointment at: https://www.rivcoph.org/COVID-19-Vaccine.

Seniors who need assistance can dial 2-1-1. Those who register must show proof of age/employment at the time of appointment. Residents under 18 must have a parent or guardian with them when arriving to their vaccine appointment.

Cases in Coachella Valley Cities and Communities (As of 07/28/21)

Valley cases are updated every Wednesday

· Bermuda Dunes Confirmed Cases: 683 Deaths: 10 Recovered: 660

· Cabazon Confirmed Cases: 332 Deaths: 7 Recovered: 322

· Cathedral City Confirmed Cases: 7,270 Deaths: 113 Recoveries: 7,083

· Coachella Confirmed Cases: 8,009 Deaths: 97 Recovered: 7,884

· Desert Edge Confirmed Cases: 353 Deaths: 16 Recovered: 331

· Desert Hot Springs Confirmed Cases: 4,345 Deaths: 74 Recovered: 4,221

· Desert Palms Confirmed Cases: 268 Deaths: 25 Recovered: 240

· Garnet Confirmed Cases: 906 Deaths: 20 Recovered: 877

· Indian Wells Confirmed Cases: 206 Deaths: 6 Recovered: 194

· Indio Confirmed Cases: 12,573 Deaths: 227 Recoveries: 12,229

· La Quinta Confirmed Cases: 3,553 Deaths: 59 Recovered: 3,446

· Mecca Confirmed Cases: 1,138 Deaths: 19 Recovered: 1,115

· North Shore Confirmed Cases: 361 Deaths: 1 Recovered: 360

· Oasis Confirmed Cases: 897 Deaths: 8 Recovered: 886

· Palm Desert Confirmed Cases: 4,093 Deaths: 119 Recovered: 3,908

· Palm Springs Confirmed Cases: 3,912 Deaths: 129 Recovered: 3,693

· Rancho Mirage Confirmed Cases: 1,142 Deaths: 50 Recovered: 1,068

· Sky Valley Confirmed Cases: 227 Deaths: 5 Recovered: 222

· Thermal Confirmed Cases: 477 Deaths: 9 Recovered: 466

· Thousand Palms Confirmed Cases: 1,073 Deaths: 9 Recovered: 1,056

· County Jails There are 948 cases in the County’s jails, with 1 death, and 939 recoveries.·

· State Jails There are 5,480 cases in the County’s jails, with 1 death, and 5,467 recoveries.

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Jesus Reyes | Contributed

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California has recorded a half-million coronavirus cases in the last two weeks and in a month could be facing a once-unthinkable caseload of nearly 100,000 hospitalizations, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state’s top health official said Monday.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, himself quarantined for the second time in two months, acknowledged that a state projection model shows hospitalizations in that range and said he’s likely to extend his stay-at-home order for much of the state next week.

Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of Health and Human Services. said it’s feared entire areas of the state may run out of room even in their makeshift “surge” capacity units “by the end of the month and early in January.” In response, the state is updating its planning guide for how hospitals would ration care if everyone can’t get the treatment they need, he said.

“Our goal is to make sure those plans are in place, but work hard to make sure no one has to put them into place anywhere in California,” Ghaly said.

It hopes to accomplish that by beefing up temporary staffing, opening makeshift hospitals in places like gymnasiums, tents and a vacant NBA arena, and by sending patients to regions of the state that might have precious remaining beds. Officials said residents can still play perhaps the biggest role by skipping holiday gatherings and practicing precautions to slow the spread.

California is enduring by far its worst spike in cases and hospitalizations. All of Southern California and the 12-county San Joaquin Valley to the north have been out of regular ICU capacity for days. Those two regions are the ones Newsom are likely to have stay-at-home orders extended, meaning many business must remain closed, restaurants can only serve takeout and virtually all retail is limited to 20% capacity.

California is averaging almost 44,000 newly confirmed cases a day and has recorded 525,000 in the last two weeks. It’s estimated 12% those who test positive end up in the hospital. That means 63,000 hospitalizations from the last 14 days of cases. The current figure is 17,190.

The state’s public health department in June released crisis planning guidelines for hospitals and other care facilities during the pandemic. It provides detailed guidance for how to manage care decisions when resources are scarce.

The goal is the best possible outcome for the largest number of people, the document says.

The guidelines emphasize the importance of planning for crisis scenarios and of ensuring decisions are not made based on discriminatory factors such as age, race, disability, gender, socioeconomic status, insurance status.

The document outlines best practices for “proactive triage” that must occur when a hospital has exhausted its resources. A basic graphic shows the first consideration should be whether a patient is actively dying or certain to die, in which case they should only be given palliative care.

For patients not in that category, care providers are broadly asked to assess a person’s prognosis of survival compared to others when determining how to allocate limited resources.

Los Angeles County is among the hardest hit areas of the state but its hospitals aren’t there yet, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services Director Dr. Christina Ghaly said Monday. They are in the contingency stage, which means shifting around staff and equipment.

“You’re … doing things that you wouldn’t otherwise do — canceling surgeries, redeploying staff, things of that nature,” said Ghaly, the wife of the state health director. “It causes intense strain. It’s exhausting for staff, but hospitals are able to do this by redeploying the resources that they have to the greatest extent possible.”

But without rapid changes in people’s behavior to stop the spread, she warned, “that’s where we will be headed in the future “

Newsom gave Monday’s briefing from his home as he began a 10-day quarantine Sunday for the second time in two months after a staff member tested positive for the virus.

The governor will be apart from his wife and four young children for Christmas, isolated in one room and his office in the Sacramento home they share because he was in the presence Friday of a staff member who tested positive two days later.

Newsom was tested and his result came back negative, as did the tests of other staffers who were in contact with the person.

Last month, members of the governor’s family were exposed to someone who tested positive for the virus. All tested negative.

In a rare bright note, Newsom said federal relief aid and more vaccines are both on the way. The first 110,000 doses of the newly approved Moderna vaccine arrived in California a week after California hospitals administered the first 70,258 doses of the Pfizer vaccine. And Newsom said $600 in federal relief checks to lower income Californians will bring about $17 billion to California, while $300 weekly supplemental unemployment benefits will add another $20 billion for Californians.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner said in a video briefing Monday that students will not return to in-person classes when the new semester begins in January because the virus in the community is about 15 times the level the state has set for schools to consider reopening. Results from the district’s virus testing program in the past week are alarming: 5% of adults and nearly 10% of children without symptoms were positive.

“Unfortunately, Los Angeles has become the epicenter for the virus in our country at this time,” Beutner said.

The explosion of cases in the last six weeks has California’s death toll climbing. Another 83 fatalities reported Sunday raised the total to 22,676, though Newsom cautioned the daily figure was likely too low because of a normal weekend reporting lag.

The state has averaged 233 deaths each day for the last 14 days.

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