Santa Clara County Reports 753 New Coronavirus Cases, 4 Deaths

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA — The Santa Clara County Public Health Department reported 753 additional coronavirus cases Thursday.

The latest report brings the countywide case count to 36,673.

The county reported four additional coronavirus-related fatalities Thursday, bringing its COVID-19 death toll to 495.

There were 296 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Santa Clara County as of Thursday, of which 82 were being treated in intensive care units.

Elsewhere around the Bay Area and beyond, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a new stay-at-home order Thursday that will be targeted at regions of the state with diminished intensive care unit capacity as the state attempts to slow its surge of new COVID-19 cases.

Counties with less than 15 percent of their intensive care unit beds open and available will be subject to the order, according to Newsom, requiring the closure of nearly all nonessential businesses for at least three weeks.

Retail stores in areas affected by the order will be allowed to remain open at 20 percent of their maximum indoor capacity while most other nonessential businesses like hair and nail salons, restaurants, wineries and fitness centers would be required to close both indoor and outdoor operations.

Schools that have already reopened in-person classes will be allowed to continue and such decisions will be left to county officials, Newsom said.

"We do not anticipate having to do this again, but we really all need to step up, we need to meet this moment head-on and we need to do everything we can to stem the tide, to bend the curve and give us the time necessary ... to get those vaccines in the hands of all Californians," Newsom said Thursday in a briefing announcing the new order.

The stay-at-home order will be enforced at a regional level rather than by county, as the state's pandemic-related health restrictions have been enforced for much of the year. The regions include the Bay Area, greater Sacramento, Northern California, Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley.

The counties in each region will be placed in the appropriate tier of the state's pandemic reopening system, based on their case and test data, once they have reduced their ICU patient populations.

Four of the five regions are likely to pass the 15 percent threshold in the coming days, Newsom said, while the Bay Area is on pace to have less than 15 percent of its ICU beds available by mid-December.

The formal details of the order come just days after Newsom and state Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said California's hospital and ICU systems were on track to be overwhelmed, and in some cases entirely full, by Christmas.

Ghaly said Thursday that the state's rate of transmission has increased four-fold over the last six weeks and limiting movement and social mixing and interaction throughout the state will be key to curbing the current surge.

"It isn't about single sector-by-sector and where is that spread happening," Ghaly said when asked why some businesses that may not be responsible for spreading the virus will still be subject to closure under the order.

"We know that by reducing our overall movement and mixing for a short period of time, we can get the gains that we need to bend this curve," he said.

Amid a winter surge in COVID-19 cases, Santa Cruz County is significantly expanding free community testing.

The testing site at Ramsay Park in Watsonville will now be expanded to provide appointment-based testing seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and can test up to 330 residents a day.

A new testing center also opened at Twin Lakes Church on 2701 Cabrillo College Drive in Aptos, which is open from Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

A small special education school in Danville is coping with a COVID-19 outbreak that sickened eight adults led to the temporary closure of one class, according to officials with the San Ramon Valley Unified School District.

The outbreak occurred at the start of the district's second phase of campus reopenings, which kicked off on Nov. 17, said Superintendent John Malloy. One adult student at the Del Amigo campus, which serves developmentally disabled adults, came to school and was exhibiting symptoms, Malloy said.

A staff member who works in the classroom took the student's temperature and sent them home but district officials didn't learn of their positive COVID-19 status until much later. "We did not know that there were positive cases in this classroom until really the following Monday, Nov. 23," Malloy said.

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There have been 1,276,729 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 19,498 coronavirus-related deaths in California as of Thursday afternoon according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The United States had 14,086,016 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 275,550 coronavirus-related fatalities as of Thursday afternoon.

There have been 65,016,336 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,502,728 deaths reported globally as of Thursday afternoon.

— Bay City News contributed to this report