Coronavirus Pandemic: Health Officials Announce Two New Coronavirus Deaths In Alameda County
OAKLAND (CBS SF) -- Alameda County officials announced two new coronavirus fatalities Saturday during the deadliest day so far in the San Francisco Bay Area since the outbreak began more than two months ago.
There were also five fatalities announced by Santa Clara County health officials on Saturday and a single new death in Contra Costa County. The Bay Area death toll has now soared to 46 fatalities with the number of confirmed cases climbing to 1,779. Alameda County has had 6 deaths and 240 cases.
Santa Clara has been the hardest hit by the outbreak of all the 10 Bay Area counties. With the five new deaths Saturday, there have now been 25 fatalities in Santa Clara to the virus since the outbreak began more than two months ago. The total number of confirmed cases within the county rose to 591.
Officials did not release any other information about the latest Alameda County fatalities in regards to the victims ages, sex and likely initial exposure to the disease.
Alameda County's announcement came on a day when Gov. Gavin Newsom joined San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo visiting a Bloom Energy storage facility in Sunnyvale that has been converted into a plant to refurbish hundreds of ventilators.
Newsom delivered a stunning announcement of his own when he meet with reporters after the tour. The governor said the number of people who have been hospitalized with the virus grew by nearly 40 percent from 746 people Friday to 1,034 Saturday.
He said the surge had contributed to a doubling of the patients reportedly admitted overnight to ICU units at hospitals across the state. But Newsom did not identify exactly how many of those patients were coronavirus victims.
"I know there is a lot of appropriate attention on how many (confirmed cases) there are," Newsom said. "We look less to those numbers, more to the hospitalization and ICU numbers to drive our policy."
Of the 10,000 ventilators California needs, Newsom told reporters, his staff has been able to obtained an additional 4,252. More are needed, the governor said, and even though the state has a request in for ventilators from the federal government, officials need to do what they can to acquire them independently.
"We have our ask in and we are not waiting to see that fulfilled," he told reporters. "We are trying to repurpose what we have, and trying to find on the private market around the rest of the world those that we can source."