California is on the verge of breaking a pandemic record from the darkest days of the spring: With 17,750 COVID-19 patients hospitalized yesterday, the state is closing in on New York’s single-day high of 18,825, set on April 13. It’s a shocking turn of events for California, a huge state that, not long ago, had better control of—or luck with—the virus than much of the country.
In October, as the pandemic’s winter surge was beginning to take shape across the U.S., California’s public-health researchers and officials expressed measured optimism that the nation’s most populous state could avoid a disastrous rise in cases. During a press conference on October 19, Governor Gavin Newsom pointed to declining hospitalization rates as a sign of the state’s success, but also warned that the decline was slowing. “We’re beginning to flatten out, plateau, as relates to hospitalizations,” he said.
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