After holding at low levels in late winter and early spring, the number of people getting infected by the coronavirus is rising steadily across the Inland Empire.
The latest trend suggests it’s time to take extra precautions, experts say, but they don’t anticipate another frightening spike that sends hundreds to the hospital as the recent omicron surge did.
“I don’t think this is the start of a major new wave,” epidemiologist Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of population health and disease prevention at UC Irvine, said Friday, May 20. “I’m not overly concerned. It’s clear we have seen a rebound. … It’s just not clear to me that it means we’re heading for another catastrophic wave.”
At the same time, Noymer did not rule out the possibility that the current “uptick” could turn into a major surge.
Dr. Adrian Cotton, chief of medical operations at Loma Linda University Health, said only time will tell, but early indications are the current surge won’t be as steep as others.
“We may go up a little bit,” Cotton said. “I don’t think we are going to go up dramatically.”
“What people really need to be concerned about is a significant rise in hospitalizations,” he added.
So far, relatively few people are getting seriously sick.
Hospitalizations for coronavirus infections are increasing in Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties, but are far below the levels that put many Southern Californians in danger and stretched overwhelmed hospitals in January and February.
On Thursday, May 19, hospitals, according to state data, reported treating:
- 55 coronavirus patients in San Bernardino County, up from a pandemic low of 28 on April 24 and 25
- 80 patients in Riverside County, up from 36 on May 5
- 401 patients in Los Angeles County, up from a pandemic low of 209 on April 22
By comparison, at the height of the omicron surge in January, hospitalizations reached 1,265 in San Bernardino County, 1,109 in Riverside County and 4,814 in LA County.
The Loma Linda University adult hospital in San Bernardino County offers a snapshot. On any given day, there are between one and five COVID-19-positive patients in the hospital, Cotton said. That compares to peaks of 177 patients during the omicron surge and 212 during the worst surge of the pandemic in the winter of 2020-21, he said.
After treating more than 40 patients in the hospital’s intensive care unit last January, none of the unit’s patients were being treated for COVID-19 on Friday, Cotton said.
Dr. Jennifer Chevinsky, deputy public health officer for Riverside County, said that so far the increase in cases is not putting significant pressure on area hospitals.
The pandemic has brought several waves and, over the past month, the virus has once again gathered momentum.
San Bernardino County has seen new confirmed COVID-19 case reports rise from 1,549 during the week of April 9-15 to 2,010 for the week ending Friday, May 20, county records show. During the same period, new cases in Riverside County surged from 755 to 3,925.
LA County reported 22,150 cases during the week ending Friday, up from 6,832 during April 9-15. This week’s total did not include Friday numbers from Long Beach.
In response to the increase, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health on Friday extended a requirement for everyone 2 years old and older to wear masks on public transit and in indoor transportation hubs. That includes trains, buses, taxis, ride-shares, airport and bus terminals, train stations and port terminals.
L.A.’s rise nudged its new infection rate above 200 cases per 100,000 population, pushing the county into the “medium” community transmission level, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
San Bernardino County, with 117 new cases per 100,000 people, and Riverside County, with 115 new cases per 100,000, are rated as having a “low” community transmission level.
In all three counties, fewer than 2% of hospital beds are occupied by COVID-19-positive patients, the CDC reported.
“When we see numbers going up, we should start thinking about our safety practices,” Chevinsky said. “We are strongly recommending indoor masking in order to help slow the spread.”
San Bernardino County Public Health Director Josh Dugas urged people “to continue to exercise caution” and consider getting vaccinated or boosted.
“Approved COVID-19 vaccines and boosters have shown to be safe and effective at preventing serious illness from COVID-19, including variants,” Dugas said in a statement.
Dugas and Chevinsky encouraged residents to resort to the practices they have become accustomed to during the pandemic, such as washing hands frequently, maintaining a distance between other people, avoiding large crowds, planning activities outdoors when possible and staying home if they’re feeling sick.
Noymer said masking is key and urged everyone to mask up indoors.
“We shouldn’t put masks back on because we should have never taken them off,” he said.
People should use masks known to be effective at filtering virus particles, such as the N95 and KN95, Noymer said.
At the same time, Noymer doesn’t advocate “hard-core mandates” but rather thoughtful guidance and advice from public health professionals.
“A lot of people aren’t going to take my advice to mask,” he said, adding, “I’m not in favor of a security guard escorting someone out of a store because they aren’t wearing a mask.”
Cotton, the medical chief at Loma Linda, has a different point of view on masking. He said people who have underlying health risks should wear masks, while others should decide what is best for them.
“I do not believe that everybody needs to mask up indoors,” he said. “Is there a huge benefit from everybody masking up everywhere they go? The answer is no.”
The Rev. Monrow Mabon, 75, had been making a point of masking up everywhere he went.
“I never wore the cloth masks that were attractive but that they said were not that effective,” he said.
Mabon washed his hands frequently, saying, “I’m surprised I didn’t scrub the skin off my hands.”
He avoided crowds.
With children and grandchildren living in the area, his Riverside home has served as an extended-family gathering place in the past. But, during the pandemic, he said, “we didn’t have any social events, barbecues, birthday parties in our home.”
And the associate minister at Allen Chapel Riverside said he didn’t gather with fellow parishioners for worship until April.
Those precautions kept him virus-free for two years.
“It’s really amazing,” Mabon said. “I went through the whole time period (of the pandemic) and never had any symptoms, never had any problems.”
That is, until the middle of March.
His wife was scheduled to undergo a procedure and was asked to first take a coronavirus test. He decided to get tested, too. She ended up being free of the virus; he ended up positive. Mabon said his episode with COVID-19 was mild. He came down with a sore throat and had a hoarse voice.
“My taste buds seem to have been altered a little bit,” he added. “Case in point: I love apple pies. And apple pies don’t taste as good and sweet as they used to.”
Scott Lesch, a 57-year-old Riverside resident, also managed to elude the virus for two years before coming down with COVID-19 in April.
“I developed a cough and had sinus problems on that Palm Sunday,” Lesch said, referring to April 10. “I thought it was allergies. Then it got worse on Monday.”
So he took a home COVID-19 test. It was positive.
“I woke up Tuesday morning and felt like I was going to die,” Lesch said.
He had chills, a 102-degree fever and muscle aches.
“My sinuses were completely closed and I was just horribly fatigued,” Lesch said. “I had trouble even getting out of bed.”
Two days later, he was pretty much back to normal.
“I’m convinced that it was because I was vaccinated,” he said.
Lesch said he was grateful because he lost a work colleague to COVID-19 and knows two other people whose lives were taken by the virus.
“I realize that the odds that you are going to die from it are low,” he said. “But they aren’t trivial.”
Cotton, of Loma Linda, said he expects far fewer people to become sick and die as a result of the latest surge as compared to past ones because many have protection, either from the vaccine or from having contracted the virus, or both. And there are more treatment options.
While it’s impossible to predict what will happen, Noymer, of UC Irvine, said people should not be surprised that, after all this time, more waves are occurring.
“COVID isn’t just going to go down to some valley and then ride off into the sunset,” Noymer said. “We’re going to see cycles. We’re going to see increases. That’s just the new reality.”
