Hospital Visitors Must Be Vaccinated Or Show Negative Test In CA

CALIFORNIA — California began requiring proof of vaccination or negative coronavirus test for all hospital and nursing home visitors on Wednesday as large numbers of unvaccinated patients flock to hospitals across the state.

The highly contagious delta variant has fueled a summertime spike in cases. As a result, hospitalizations have doubled in California, rising from 2,543 patients on July 23 to 6,554 patients Wednesday. In that same time frame, the number of patients intensive care units rose from 582 to 1,430.

In a major push to drive up vaccinations, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last that health care workers across the state would be required to become vaccinated or undergo weekly testing. An identical order was announced for teachers and school staff on Wednesday.

"If we want to end this pandemic and disease, we could do it in a month," Newsom said, speaking from Claremont Middle School in Oakland on Wednesday. "This disease is now a choice. The one thing that could end this pandemic once and for all is available in abundance to everybody that wants it. Regardless of your ability to pay, regardless of your immigration status: It's available today."

The vast majority of new cases are among those who are unvaccinated, a group associated with 600 percent higher case rates, according to state data. For the week of Aug. 7 the average case rate among unvaccinated Californians was 51 per 100,000 per day and the average case rate among vaccinated Californians was just 8.2 per 100,000 per day, according to the state.

The state positivity rate was 6.4 percent Wednesday, with 9,925 new cases reported.

More than 54 percent of Californians have been fully vaccinated, according to data from the Los Angeles Times. And 77.5 percent of eligible Californians have received one dose, the state reported.

Post-vaccination coronavirus cases have risen too, with those cases increasing between July 14 and July 22, from 0.069 percent to 1 percent, state data showed. But experts have advised that the majority those infections have not resulted in serious disease.

"Although vaccinated people are seeing a rise in new COVID diagnosis, they are primarily experiencing their infections not as severe illnesses that bring them to the emergency room, but as bad colds," Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County's public health director said in late July.

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Experts and public health officials are pleading with the unvaccinated public to get the jab as cases and hospitalizations rise to levels not seen since the state's devastating winter surge.

"You're probably getting to a point where you have two choices — you can either get vaccinated or you can get COVID," Dr. Timothy Brewer, a professor of infectious disease at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Patch in a previous interview. "And if you get the virus, chances are it's going to be much worse for you if you have not been vaccinated."

California Coronavirus Data As Of Wednesday

• California has 3,969,722 confirmed cases to date.
• There were 9,925 newly reported confirmed cases Tuesday.
• The 7-day positivity rate is 6.4 percent.
• 76,044,392 tests have been conducted in California.