County Reports Highest Single-Day Jump in COVID-19 Deaths

Santa Clara County health officials today reported the highest one-day increase in the death toll from COVID-19, bringing the number to 25.

That’s an increase of five people who’ve died from the highly contagious virus.

The age breakdown of the deceased are listed below.

  • One person younger than 30
  • One between 41 and 50
  • Four between 51 and 60
  • Seven between 61 and 70
  • Five between 71 and 80
  • Seven between 81 and 90

The public health department also reported 17 new confirmed cases on Saturday. So far, 591 people in the county have tested positive for COVID-19, although local officials expect the actual number is much higher due to the lack of testing. As of March 22, only 647 people had been tested by the county’s public health lab.

Regardless of the actual figures, Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith reiterated at a Friday press conference that people still need to stay home. “We would not change the treatment one iota,” he said. “The treatment is still social distancing.”

Information about the number of hospitalizations has been removed from the county’s new novel coronavirus dashboard, however during a tour of the Bloom Energy factory in Sunnyvale today, Gov. Gavin Newsom said hospitalizations throughout the state rose by 38.6 percent overnight, from 746 on Friday to 1,034 today. The number of people in intensive care units also rose by 105 percent overnight from 200 to 410.

But as the number of critical cases increases, Newsom said that California is now two-fifths the way to its goal of obtaining 10,000 additional ventilators. So far, the state has collected 4,252 ventilators outside of hospitals’ current supply.

More than 1,000 of them need to be repaired.

On Friday, 170 broken ventilators from the federal government arrived in Los Angeles before getting diverted several hundred miles north to Bloom Energy, where they’ll reportedly be fixed and returned to SoCal on Monday.

“That's the spirit of California,” Newsom said. “That's the spirit of this moment. Take responsibility, take ownership and take it upon ourselves to meet this moment head on.”

5 Comments

  1. But number of deaths is a “lagging indicator”.

    The county’s coronavirus dashboard tells a more encouraging story:

    New Coronavirus Cases in Santa Clara County:

    Mar 25 84
    Mar 26 83
    Mar 27 32
    Mar 28 17

    Definitely a downward trend.

    But men are suffering more:

    Santa Clara County Coronavirus deaths by Gender:

    Female: 24%
    Male: 76%

  2. Santa Clara County needs to tell us where the cases are clustered. Their refusal to do so is evidence that county officials view the people of this county with paternalistic contempt.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *