California tops 100,000 COVID deaths: Like losing the populations of Los Gatos, Menlo Park and Pleasant Hill in three years

It took three years and an infinite quantity of heartache and upheaval for the Golden State to surpass a grim milestone this month: Greater than 100,000 Californians have died from COVID-19.

Think about if the mixed populations of Los Gatos, Menlo Park and Nice Hill disappeared within the span of three years.

Whereas it’s unclear the place or precisely when the virus claimed its 100,000th sufferer in California in latest weeks, the quantity turned official on Thursday with the newest launch of information we’ve turn into intimate with for the reason that pandemic started:

Whole COVID instances: 11,105,535.

Whole deaths: 100,187.

The somber reminder of the virus’ lethal impression comes as California prepares to shut the e-book on its pandemic state of emergency, although COVID remains to be chargeable for the deaths of about 150 Californians every week. However three years into the pandemic, robust therapeutics, our immunity from earlier infections and the ability of vaccines that blunt extreme sickness have minimize the loss of life toll from its peak of about 600 a day in January 2021.

The nation’s most populous state is the primary to cross the 100K mark in COVID deaths, however it’s removed from struggling the stain of the USA’ highest loss of life price. Thirty-nine states had larger charges than the Golden State, which benefited from aggressive public well being mandates and excessive vaccination charges.

If the U.S. had California’s loss of life price, about 282,000 fewer folks would have died.

However even right here, these deaths, and the resultant grieving, have been concentrated in some counties and areas, whereas others have been virtually spared.

California’s tiniest county, Alpine, with simply over 1,000 residents, has but to document any official COVID deaths — however that doesn’t inform the entire story. Nestled within the Sierra Nevada mountains simply south of Lake Tahoe, Alpine has no well being care amenities. So at the least two Alpine residents who died of COVID have been recorded as Nevada deaths as a result of they died in a hospital throughout the state line, mentioned the county’s Public Well being Officer Richard Johnson.

Different rural counties have been overcome by COVID deaths. On the southern fringe of the state in Imperial County, on the border with Mexico, the loss of life price from the virus is greater than double the statewide price, and 4 instances larger than the Bay Space’s.

“That’s been the theme of the pandemic,” mentioned Dr. John Swartzberg, medical professor emeritus of infectious illnesses and vaccinology at UC Berkeley’s Faculty of Public Well being. “The Bay Space’s accomplished higher than California. California’s accomplished higher the USA.”

With among the state’s most far-reaching mandates and a public that largely adopted alongside, every of the Bay Space counties has fared higher than the state as an entire, which has seen about 250 COVID deaths per 100,000 residents over the previous three years. San Mateo County has the bottom loss of life price within the area, with simply 96 deaths per 100,000. The very best is in Santa Clara County at 137, nonetheless properly under the state common.

The nation’s loss of life price is round 350, in response to information from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.

Altogether, the six-county Bay Space’s complete loss of life price is 128, simply over one third the speed in Los Angeles, the state’s most populous county, which has recorded 35,000 COVID deaths. Los Angeles County has the fourth-highest COVID loss of life price of any California county at this level within the pandemic.

As California strikes ahead, it’s typically troublesome to place into perspective the devastation that COVID has wrought in three years. Most cancers, for instance, is chargeable for the deaths of about 50,000 Californians yearly. Alzheimer’s illness kills about 16,000.

“The nationwide flu mortality price is about 10 deaths per (100,000 residents) per yr, and a extreme flu season is about 15,” Dr. Erica Pan, the California State Epidemiologist and director of the California Division of Public Well being’s Middle of Infectious Illness, mentioned at a public discussion board earlier this month. “You may see how dramatically larger COVID-19 is.”

Swartzberg remembers early within the pandemic when estimates of COVID’s lethality diversified wildly.

“Folks have been questioning whether or not the loss of life price was 3 p.c,” he mentioned of estimates early within the pandemic as scenes of refrigerated vehicles outdoors New York Metropolis hospitals turned frequent. The loss of life price has now settled at just under 1 p.c.

However disparities in well being — weight problems, diabetes, power lung illness, entry to well being care amongst others — are a significant factor in why some areas of the state, resembling Imperial County, have been hit tougher than areas such because the Bay Space, Swartzberg mentioned.

Because the state dials down its pandemic focus, some specialists imagine that development will proceed.