BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Tuesday, California became the first state to record more than 5 million confirmed coronavirus infections. The Associated Press reported the updated numbers came Tuesday after a delay due to the holiday weekend.
Looking at other large states, on Sunday, Texas had more than 4.4 million cases and Florida had nearly 4 million. California currently has a temporary indoor mask mandate regardless of vaccination status set to expire on January 15th.
Coronavirus
California 1st state to top 5M cases amid omicron surge
California Public Health reported over 86,000 new cases and 97 people have lost their lives to the virus statewide.
Public health reported about 150,000 doses of the COVID vaccine are administered on average each day with about 79-percent of the population over 5 atleast partially vaccinated.
Kern Public Health said as of the latest update Monday, December 27th, there were no confirmed cases of the omicron variant.
Looking at the increasing number of cases of the omicron variant 23ABC wanted to take an in-depth look at those numbers in California.
California Public Health reported that as of December 23rd, the number of confirmed cases of the omicron variant stands at 574 statewide.
As for confirmed cases by county, public health said that the highest confirmed cases are in Los Angeles County with 364 cases, Santa Clara with 53, San Bernadino with 43, San Diego with 30, and Sonoma with 17.
Twenty-two counties in total across the state have confirmed cases of the variant according to the state.
Keep in mind that not every case of COVID is tested for the variant type although public health does add that wastewater monitoring shows the omicron variant is present in most regions of the state.
Still, the omicron covid variant may not be as prevalent as previously thought. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is adjusting its estimate of the variant's infection rate down. The CDC now believes omicron was responsible for 58.6 percent of new cases in the United States last week. That's down from the agency's previous estimate of 73.2 percent.
Because not every COVID test goes through genetic sequencing to determine what variant caused it It's extremely difficult to pinpoint how many cases each variant causes. Also, many COVID infections never get tested at all.