Santa Clara County Reports 264 New Coronavirus Cases, 3 Deaths

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA — The Santa Clara County Public Health Department reported 264 additional coronavirus cases Monday.

The latest report brings the countywide case count to 26,747.

The county reported three additional coronavirus-related fatalities Monday, bringing its COVID-19 death toll to 433.

There were 103 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Santa Clara County as of Monday, of which 24 were being treated in intensive care units.

Elsewhere in the Bay Area and beyond, California's rate of positive coronavirus tests has increased nearly 50 percent over the last three weeks, possibly portending the next wave of the pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday.

The state's 14-day positivity rate has risen from 2.5 on Oct. 19 to 3.7 Monday, according to Newsom.

Likewise, the number of coronavirus patients within the state's hospital system has risen by nearly 29 percent over the last two weeks.

Those increases also come as the state continues to ramp up its testing capacity, as California is now averaging nearly 144,000 coronavirus tests per day.

While the state has fortified its stocks of personal protective equipment, ventilators and intensive care unit beds in anticipation of the pandemic's next wave, Newsom said the recent case and hospitalization increases should be sobering for all residents of the state.

"We're starting to see people take down their guard, take off their masks, begin to mix outside their households," Newsom said. "We've seen some early indication related to Halloween. I'm very sober about that and that's what I was elected to focus on."

The effects of the statewide increase in new cases are expected to trickle down to the county level and affect which businesses can reopen when the state modifies its pandemic reopening tier assignments on Tuesday.

A total of 10 counties are in the "purple tier," the most restrictive section of the state's four-tiered reopening system. The next two tiers, red and orange, include 20 and 19 counties, respectively, including much of the greater Bay Area. The least-restrictive yellow tier includes only nine counties, including San Francisco County.

Newsom said he expected to see multiple counties move into more restrictive tiers this week. "This is exactly why we designed the tier status the way we did," Newsom said.

"It was about being more and less restrictive, not based upon political whim, but based upon the data, based upon the epidemiology, based upon the facts on the ground... the tier system is working as it was designed."

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There have been 978,881 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 17,985 coronavirus-related deaths in California as of Monday afternoon according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The United States had 10,036,282 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 238,053 coronavirus-related fatalities as of Monday afternoon.

There have been 50,794,593 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,262,199 deaths reported globally as of Monday afternoon.

— Bay City News contributed to this report