Coronavirus: Bay Area’s two-day break without COVID-19 deaths ends – The Mercury News

The Bay Area’s two-day respite from coronavirus-related deaths ended Tuesday with a considerable thud, when health officials added nine more deaths to the list in San Mateo County as well as additional ones in Alameda and Santa Clara counties.

That change from recent days came on the same day Alameda County went ahead of Santa Clara County for the most cases of COVID-19 in the Bay Area since the pandemic began. Alameda County’s case list also grew by another 65 to a total of 2,522. That put them ahead of Santa Clara County (2,483) and atop Northern California. Santa Clara County added 13 new cases Tuesday.

Santa Clara County has recorded 137 deaths related to COVID-19, the most in Northern California. Alameda County has counted 89 fatalities.

The new statistics were reported Tuesday and were reflected through Monday night.

The deaths in San Mateo County were the first ones there since Friday and the most added in any one day there since the pandemic began. Alameda County added three to its list and Santa Clara two.

San Francisco and Contra Costa County health officials did not report any deaths Tuesday. San Francisco has not recorded more than two deaths in a single day since May 5 and has recorded 36 total. Contra Costa County, which has seen 33 deaths, hasn’t reported a new one since May 1.

All of the deaths were the first fatalities reported anywhere in the Bay Area since May 16. The 48 hours without a reported death marked the Bay Area’s longest stretch without one since the earliest days of the pandemic in March.

San Mateo County’s 75 deaths through Monday night were the Bay Area’s third-highest total. Three of every four victims have been over 80 years old, and only one person has been under 50, according to health officials. White residents have comprised 64% of the deaths.

The latest three deaths in Santa Clara County were the first recorded there since May 15, ending a three-day stretch without one that had been the county’s longest since the outbreak.

All but 7% of the fatalities have been people over 50 years old, health officials said, and 63% have been over 70. Nearly 9 in 10 of the people who died already had at least one underlying health condition, officials said. Two of ever three people to die in Santa Clara County have been of Asian or Latin/Hispanic descent.

In Alameda County 72 of the people who have died were at least 51 years old. Twenty-six (30%) of the deaths have been recorded this month, and 12 (14%) in the past week. Health officials said 72 of the 86 fatalities have been people at least 51 years old.

In San Francisco, 22 of the victims (61%) have been over 81 years old; none of them have been under 41. All but two of the 36 had underlying conditions, and health officials said they are unsure about the other two. In Contra Costa County, every victim has been older than 50, and 20 have been older than 80.

Contra Costa County also saw a spike in confirmed cases in its Tuesday report, but Alameda County is where the recent numbers seem concerning.

Alameda County’s additional 65 confirmed cases Tuesday were the same number as Monday’s count, and gave the county 39 more cases during the pandemic than Santa Clara County. Alameda County is the only one in Northern California with more than 2,500 confirmed cases. Only Los Angeles (38,451 through Sunday), Riverside (5,952 through Sunday), San Diego (5,946 through Sunday) and Orange (4,500 through Monday) counties have more in the state.

Alameda County has added 390 cases over the past week, an average of 55.7 per day. They recorded 27 new cases on May 4 but since then have added an average of 49.7 new cases per day.

People 18-40 years old have been infected the most during the pandemic, with 1,014 cases (40%) coming from that age group. The virus has been diagnosed in 970 (38%) of Hispanics or Latinos.

Contra Costa County adding 37 confirmed cases to its list and has totaled 1,192 during the pandemic. It was the biggest single-day increase in that county since April 21, when health officials confirmed 42 cases.

Health officials there had seen a general decline in cases since April 21, adding an average of 15 new cases a day in the 16 days that followed. The county had single single-digit increases on three days this month, and on a fourth did not record any new cases.

Richmond residents account for 197 (16.5%) of the cases, Concord’s for 117 (10%) and Antioch’s for 106 (9%), while El Sobrante (276 cases per 100,000 people), Bay Point (252-per-100,000) and San Pablo (248-per-100,000) also have been hit harder than most.

San Francisco also confirmed 48 more cases of COVID-19, its highest single-day increase since May 10. Doctors have diagnosed 2,179 residents with the novel coronavirus during the pandemic; the city has shown a spike over the past five days, with the numbers increasing each day since the county added a pandemic-low five new cases last Thursday.

Fifty-nine percent of those diagnosed in the city have been male, and 45% have caught the virus through community contact. The virus has hit the Latino and Hispanic population hard, with 43% of the cases in San Francisco coming from that demographic.

San Mateo County added 16 more cases on Tuesday and has recorded 1,687. Daly City (297, 18%), Redwood City (220, 13%) and South San Francisco (9%) have seen the bulk of the cases there.

Santa Clara County, which had an average 7-day new-case rate of 30 as recently as April 26 has confirmed more than 30 cases in a day only once since May 10, and its added an average of only 17 cases per day over the past week.

The rest of the Bay Area — Solano, Sonoma, Marin, Santa Cruz and Napa counties — had combined to confirm 1,295 cases through Sunday night.

Check back for updates.