The pandemic is in retreat across the U.S. — especially in California, which continues to record the lowest coronavirus case rate of all U.S. states and is home to four of the 10 metropolitan areas with the lowest rates.
The Salinas area on Sunday had the lowest rate of daily new cases out of about 400 metro areas in the country, at 0.6 per 100,000 population, according to the nonprofit data website COVID Act Now. At No. 2 lowest was the Santa Cruz metro area, with 0.7 cases per 100,000.
The San Jose region in the Bay Area was No. 8, at 1.8 cases per 100,000. And the Los Angeles County metro area was No. 10, with 1.9 cases per 100,000.
Los Angeles has seen dramatic improvement since the worst of the winter surge, when its case rate topped the nation. Its rate on Sunday was lower than that of the San Francisco metro area, currently at No. 28 in the nation with 3.3 cases per 100,000.
At the other end of the spectrum, Lewiston, Maine, had the highest case rate of 392 U.S. metro areas tracked by COVID Act Now, at 29.8 per 100,000.
Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at UCSF, said success in rolling out vaccines and natural immunity have helped California create a “force field” that is helping it keep case rates low and “kick out” variants.
He said Los Angeles’ rate is the easiest to explain because while the area doesn’t have the highest vaccination rate (61% of residents 16 and older have received at least one dose), it has a high rate of natural immunity from the winter surge.
“It was hit so hard,” Chin-Hong said. “One in 3 residents are estimated to have become infected, therefore they have the antibodies.”
He added that Los Angeles County’s health officer, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, has been a “strong, visible public health leader,” measured in her decision-making. She “set the right tone for the county,” he said.
Karen Smith, spokeswoman for the County of Monterey Public Health Department, said declining coronavirus case rates in Salinas and Monterey County can be attributed to the response to vaccinations, and community adherence to public health measures. The county’s most recent data shows 64% of residents 12 and older in Salinas have received at least one vaccine dose, the highest percentage out of four regions in Monterey County.
Chin-Hong said Salinas has done well with its vaccination programs for farmworkers and vulnerable populations by “meeting them where they were” and “asking them what kind of vaccines they wanted,” which gave “a lot of choice and agency, and reduced hesitancy as much as possible.”
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Chin-Hong said he couldn’t say specifically why the case rate is so low in Santa Cruz, but guessed that the area is less dense than many parts of the Bay Area, and is farther away from some of the hot spots in the Central Valley. According to the New York Times vaccine tracker, 55% of Santa Cruz County residents 12 and older have been vaccinated.
California’s case rate on Sunday was 3.5 cases per 100,000 people — the lowest of all states in the nation, according to COVID Act Now. It was followed by Oklahoma at 3.5 and Nebraska at 4.1 per 100,000.
COVID Act Now gets its data from official sources including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The New York Times, and official state and county dashboards.
Kellie Hwang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kellie.hwang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KellieHwang
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May 24, 2021 at 05:27AM
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These California metro areas now have the lowest coronavirus case rates in the U.S. - San Francisco Chronicle
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