Santa Clara County Reports 1,118 New Coronavirus Cases, 24 Deaths

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA — The Santa Clara County Public Health Department reported 1,118 additional coronavirus cases Tuesday.

The latest report brings the countywide case count to 50,315.

The county reported 24 additional coronavirus-related fatalities Tuesday, bringing its COVID-19 death toll to 553.

There were 528 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Santa Clara County as of Tuesday, of which 121 were being treated in intensive care units.

Elsewhere around the Bay Area and beyond, California is expecting to receive nearly 400,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine by the end of the week in addition to the 327,600 doses the state is currently distributing, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday.

The state received its first shipment of roughly 33,000 vaccines from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer on Monday, with thousands more being delivered "as we speak, into the evening, into the rest of the week," according to Newsom.

That initial allotment is being dispersed to health care facilities and hospitals as well as nursing homes and similar congregated care facilities. Vaccines have already arrived in San Francisco, Contra Costa County and San Joaquin County. More than 30 locations across the state are expected to receive vaccine deliveries between Monday and Wednesday, Newsom said.

"We're finally seeing those we value the most, we've celebrated since the beginning of this pandemic, get that support," Newsom said of health care workers having access to the vaccine.

"Those emergency room (doctors) and nurses, folks there on the front lines of this pandemic and have been there from the beginning," he said.

Newsom said the state expects to receive another 393,000 vaccine doses from Pfizer later in the week as well as 672,000 doses of the vaccine developed by the biotechnology company Moderna by the end of the month.

The Moderna vaccine still requires approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Assuming that approval happens in the coming days, the state could have as many as 2.1 million vaccine doses by the beginning of January, according to Newsom.

California's advisory committee overseeing vaccine safety and distribution has separated the first vaccine recipients into phases with several sub-tiers based on risk of contracting the virus.

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There have been 1,628,270 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 21,290 coronavirus-related deaths in California as of Tuesday afternoon according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The United States had 16,677,333 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 303,046 coronavirus-related fatalities as of Tuesday afternoon.

There have been 73,365,192 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,632,554 deaths reported globally as of Tuesday afternoon.

— Bay City News contributed to this report