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Who’s dying now? Here’s how recent COVID deaths compare to the early months of the pandemic in California

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Who’s dying now? Here’s how recent COVID deaths compare to the early months of the pandemic in California


Four years after the start of the COVID pandemic, the age and race of its victims in California have dramatically shifted: Now, a Bay Area News Group analysis finds, those who are dying from the virus are much older, and more often White than Latino, a notable switch.

While COVID deaths in California have plunged across all race and age groups, a comparison of deaths from the first six months of the pandemic to the most recent six months of data compiled by the California Department of Public Health shows 70% of those dying nowadays are 75 or older — up from just over half in early 2020.

And while Latinos made up nearly half of all Californians killed by COVID in the first six months of the pandemic, White residents now account for nearly 60% of all deaths.

The changing demographics and plummeting overall death toll exhibit how Californians built up immunity to the virus, experts say, through exposures and vaccines, and which groups are now the most vulnerable to the worst outcomes.

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After four years of living with the virus, life is largely back to pre-pandemic normal. But when the virus first shut down our lives in 2020, face masks and working from home were foreign concepts to most. And while the speed of developing the first COVD vaccines was unprecedented in science, it took until early 2021 — the heart of the pandemic’s deadliest wave — for the public to get immunized. While COVID’s risk has certainly diminished, how much has its deadly wake actually changed in that time?

First, the virus is much less deadly. In the most recent six months for which data is available, from Sept. 1, 2023, through Feb. 29, 2024, there were 3,472 deaths attributed to the virus in California. But in the first six months of the pandemic, Feb. 1 through Aug. 31, 2020, more than four times that number of Californians died from COVID — 14,648.

“Wow, we are doing so much better than we were,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, his first reaction when looking at the data.

The total number of people dying has dropped across the board in nearly every category. More people over 85 died in the first six months of the pandemic, 4,209, than the number of deaths across all age groups in the past six months.

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Second, your age is a factor. While older people have always been more vulnerable, they account for an even higher proportion of COVID deaths now.

The proportion of all COVID deaths among those 85 and older has grown from 29% to 42%. But that doesn’t mean the virus is deadlier for our elders: In the first six months of the pandemic, there were three times more deaths from the virus in that 85-and-older age group than there were in the most recent six-month period.

However small the number, there is one statistical peculiarity: The two youngest age groups are the only ones that saw more deaths in the past six months than early in the pandemic.

No deaths were reported among children younger than 14 in the Golden State through Aug. 31, 2020, but three young children have died from COVID, including two children under 5, in the last six months.

While deaths have become more concentrated among older Californians, another factor has changed dramatically: the racial breakdown of the people dying.

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Early in the pandemic, “Blacks and Latinos struggled much more … in terms of mortality rates than any other population, primarily compared to Asian and White populations,” Swartzberg noted. “But that has flipped.”

The percentage of Californians who died who are White has nearly doubled, from 30% to 60% of all COVID deaths, from 4,332 deaths through August 2020, to 2,065 deaths in the most recent period. White people make up 37% of the state’s residents.

Moving in the other direction, the proportion of Latino deaths among those who died from COVID has shrunk from 49% of the first six months to just 20% of recent deaths. Latino people make up 39% of the state’s residents.

California’s Latino population is younger and therefore less at risk, Swartzberg said.

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And he has some more educated guesses as to why the early pandemic death trends among racial groups have flipped so dramatically: In the first years of the pandemic, many Black and Latino communities were not getting vaccinated as quickly as their White counterparts, a combination of lack of access and insufficient outreach, but that has changed as the pandemic has evolved.

A November 2023 poll by KFF, a nonprofit health care research foundation, found a slightly higher percentage of Black and Hispanic adults reported getting an updated vaccine, compared to 19% of White adults. And the gap grew when adding those who planned on getting the new vaccine but hadn’t yet, 59% of Black and Hispanic adults and just 42% of White adults. The poll also found White adults were less likely to take precautions against catching and spreading the virus during this past holiday season.

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UCSF professor of medicine who specializes in infectious diseases, also points to political influence on vaccine uptake as “one of the most compelling trends.”

The KFF poll found Democrats were twice as likely as Republicans to say they had already gotten the updated vaccine, while 55% of Republicans said they would “definitely not get” the new vaccine compared to 12% of Democrats and 40% of independents.

“In the beginning, none of this was political … we were all in this together,” said Chin-Hong. “The differential in mortality was based on structural racism and lack of access, underlying medical problems. But then it became a very polarizing issue, like everything regarding COVID.”

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Northern California’s House of Clocks has stood the test of time for 55 years

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Northern California’s House of Clocks has stood the test of time for 55 years


While we may lose an hour of sleep this coming weekend, one clock store in California is gearing up for one of its busiest times of the year: daylight savings.

It’s the House of Clocks, the largest clock company in Northern California, which was recently celebrating 55 years of business.

It’s a place frozen in time. Just visit the store’s 240-year-old grandfather clock. It’s got plenty of stories to tell, dating back to 1780.

“This is the oldest piece we have right now,” clocksmith Joey Hohn said.

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The House of Clocks is on the outskirts of Downtown Lodi in San Joaquin County.

“We have new, we have vintage, we have antique,” co-owner Sandy Hohn shared. “Honestly, it feels like not a day goes by that we don’t get a phone call or an email of somebody wanting to sell something for 100 different reasons.”

The clock store has been with the Hohn family for three generations. It’s all thanks to one family heirloom.

“When the first war started, [my grandparents] left everything and had to move,” Joey Hohn explained. “After the Second World War, my grandpa was stationed in Germany. They went back to the house that had been abandoned and the neighbor who they left the property to said, ‘As far as I’m concerned, everything in the house is still yours.’ They went back and got this, so this is my great-great-grandparents’ clock.”

You can find just about anything in the House of Clocks, from old grandfather clocks to clocks that can fit in the palm of your hand.

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What you can’t find anywhere else is the Hohns’ love for Lodi.

“We’ve made so many friends over the years out of customers,” Sandy Hohn said. “Friends that are just wonderful, that love collecting, and we keep them repaired for their families, which is awesome. They have sentimental value that’s passed down.”

That same love for the city and their community runs in the family.

“We had a customer that wanted to repaint their dial,” Joey Hohn explained. “We told them no because it was her father’s who had passed away. Every time he went to wind the clock, he placed his thumb in the same spot. When we told her that smudge there on the dial was her father, she said, ‘Back away, don’t you dare.’ It was just a good memory we have.”

While you can’t turn back time, what we can do is keep memories alive and treasure the present moment.

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“There’s so many personalities,” Sandy Hohn said. “We just try to find a good home for them.”



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Signs of spring blooming at Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve after wet, warm winter

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Signs of spring blooming at Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve after wet, warm winter


It’s beginning to look a lot like spring!

The warm and wet weather this winter has led to the start of a dazzling super bloom at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.

“We had an unseasonably warm winter as well, so there’s actually a lot of growth,” said Callista Turney with California State Parks. “We’re having early wildflowers that are already at the park. So if you look at the poppy live cam, it shows a lot of orange already.”

The rain has helped the early blooms, but it’s actually the heat that accelerated the growth of the flowers.

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“It will actually speed up the growth of the plants, so some of them were already blooming and that’s going to cause those blossoms to accelerate faster towards seed production. And the blossoms that are in the process of being formed, those are going to open up soon as well.”

We also sometimes see great super blooms in Death Valley National Park, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Joshua Tree and the Mojave National Preserve.

“It’s definitely a rare occurrence because we don’t always have the right conditions. It’s gotta be the weather, the wind, the rain, all coming together,” said Katie Tilford, Director of Development and Communications with the Theodore Payne Foundation.

If it continues to stay unseasonably warm, we’ll see a shorter bloom. The key to a longer season is milder weather.


Copyright © 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco says he’s the ‘antithesis to California state government’

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Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco says he’s the ‘antithesis to California state government’


We are counting down to the California governor’s race. Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, is one of the two biggest names running on the Republican ticket.

In a one-on-one interview with Eyewitness News political reporter Josh Haskell, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said, “I am the antithesis to California state government because I am going to take a nuclear bomb into that building and absolutely destroy everything that they do to us behind closed doors.”

Although he’s been elected by the voters twice, Bianco says he’s not a politician — which is why he believes his campaign for California governor is resonating, as reflected in the polls.

“President Trump, in one year, from 2025 when he took over, until now, did absolutely nothing to harm California. What’s harming California is 30 years of Democrat one-party rule that have created an environment here that no one can live in anymore. They’ve only been successful here in California because we vote D no matter what. You vote D or die. I mean, that’s it. Charles Manson would be elected in California if he was the only Democrat on the ballot,” Bianco said.

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Bianco isn’t the only conservative Republican running for governor, and according to polling, he’s neck-and-neck with former Fox News host Steve Hilton.

SEE ALSO: CA governor candidate Steve Hilton says ‘everybody supports’ Trump’s immigration policies

Leading in some polls in the wide-open California Governor’s race as the June primary creeps closer is Republican and former Fox News host Steve Hilton.

“Steve has no chance of winning in November. The Democrats know that I’m going to win in November, and so they have to do everything they can to keep me out of that,” Bianco said.

When asked about the affordability crisis in the state, Bianco said, “Almost the entire issue of affordability in California is because of regulation, excessive regulation imposed by government. Every single regulation can be signed away with the governor’s signature.”

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“It is a drug and alcohol addiction problem that, and a mental health problem,” he said about the homelessness crisis. “Every single bit of money that is going to these nonprofits that say ‘homeless,’ zero money. You’re getting absolutely nothing. I can’t tell you that we would end what we see in the homeless situation within a year, but I guarantee you we would never see it again after two years.”

When challenged on that prediction, pointing to how the state doesn’t have the facilities to treat the number of people living on our streets, Bianco responded, “We have been conditioned to believe that buildings take five years to build. It takes 90 days or less to build a house, but in California, it takes three to five years because the government won’t allow it. The regulations that are destroying this state are going to be removed with me as the governor.”

Bianco also said California jails shouldn’t have to play the role of treatment facilities.

Although he says he supports the Trump administration and wants the president’s endorsement, Bianco has been traveling the state — meeting not just with Republicans, but Democrats and independents as well. He says all of our state government officials have failed.

The primary election is June 2.

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No clear front-runner in race for California governor, new poll shows

A new poll shows there’s still no clear front-runner in the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.

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