Coronavirus Pandemic: Marin Health Officials Report New Death, 10 New Confirmed Coronavirus Cases
SAN RAFAEL (CBS SF) -- The coronavirus death toll in Marin County has grown to five and the total number of confirmed cases among the county's residents has risen to 108, health officials announced Thursday.
There were no details released about the virus' latest victim in terms of age, gender and how they may have been exposed to the disease. Fifteen patients remained hospitalized in the county while a total of 774 local residents have been tested for the virus.
The death toll for the 10-county San Francisco Bay Area stood at 70 early Thursday.
The increasing numbers of positive tests were as much a result of many new testing sites as it was about the spread within the county. State leaders and health officials say they are now increasingly focused on a different metric. They are using the number of people arriving at the hospital.
On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom opened his news conference updating the number of COVID-19 patients being cared for in ICU units across the state. He said 774 people in California were in ICU beds -- an increase of 16.4 percent from Tuesday.
Marin officials did to reveal how many of their 15 patients were being cared for in an ICU unit.
"Why do I start with the number 774? Because that's the number that I wake up to that I'm most focused on in the state of California," Newsom said.
He added that just over 40 percent of the patients who have been hospitalized with COVID-19 to date in the state have needed to be transferred into ICUs.
"Those numbers represent our most urgent need in terms of keeping people alive and keeping people healthy and safe in the state of California," Newsom said. "It is incumbent that we prepare for a surge in the number of hospitalizations and the number of ICU patients."
Newsom said the number of patients in ICU beds represents a 'roughly a quadrupling' compared to the data the state compiled six days ago. The governor also said the number of patients who have been hospitalized with COVID-19 — 1,855 as of Wednesday — has tripled in the last six days.