Inland Empire counties hit ‘high’ level of COVID-19 spread

The spread of the coronavirus in Riverside and San Bernardino counties reached the “high” level as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday, July 21, prompting health officials to urge people to take extra precautions to protect themselves and their loved ones.

“Some people may think COVID is over but COVID isn’t done with us — not by a longshot,” said Richard Carpiano, a public health scientist and professor of public policy at UC Riverside.

The Inland Empire counties are not expected, however, to implement an indoor mask mandate, as Los Angeles County is preparing to do later this month if the nation’s most populous county remains in the high category another week. LA and Orange counties moved into the high category last Thursday, July 14.

Leaders in Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties have said they won’t impose new restrictions unless the state orders them.

“If the state comes and revisits the issue, as a county we would revisit the issue as well,” said Jose Arballo Jr., public health spokesperson for Riverside County.

Hospitalizations of confirmed COVID-19-positive patients reached 271 in San Bernardino County on Wednesday, July 20, according to state data — the highest level there since late February.

“It’s doubled in the past month,” said Dr. Troy Pennington, an emergency room doctor at the county’s Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton. “But the thing that we’re not seeing, thankfully, is people with severe illness.”

The number of coronavirus patients being treated in intensive care units stood at 36 on Wednesday in San Bernardino County, data show.

Pennington said many more people were becoming seriously ill during last winter’s intense omicron wave, which pushed Inland hospitals to the breaking point.

In Riverside County, 235 confirmed coronavirus patients were treated in hospitals Wednesday, with 19 of them in ICUs, state data show. Riverside County hospitalizations have remained roughly flat for the last week and a half.

However, on Thursday, new weekly COVID-19 admissions reached 10 per 100,000 population in Riverside County and in San Bernardino County, enough to nudge both areas into the high transmission category.

San Bernardino County reported 375.8 new cases per 100,000 population; Riverside County reported 374.6 per 100,000, according to the CDC.

The region has been seeing a sustained rise in new coronavirus cases from late spring into summer.

Some of the increase was expected, Arballo said, as upticks typically follow holidays that generate large family gatherings. Many new cases likely resulted from people getting together on the Fourth of July, he said.

Adding to the concern is that experts say official COVID-19 case totals substantially undercount what is happening in the community, given heavy reliance on home tests that often aren’t reported to government health agencies.

Riverside County officials have long recommended that people wear masks and get vaccinated against the coronavirus, said Arballo, who added it is perhaps time for some people to go back to things they were doing earlier.

“If they have stopped wearing masks, they should consider wearing them again,” Arballo said. “They should do everything they can to keep themselves safe.”

Carpiano wrote in an email that “we all need to be thinking about our communities and doing the right things to keep everyone safe — not just focusing on ourselves.”

That, he said, includes masking indoors, testing at home and getting vaccinated — or boosted if eligible.