San Mateo County Reports 68 New Coronavirus Cases, No Deaths

SAN MATEO COUNTY, CA — San Mateo County Health reported 68 additional coronavirus cases Wednesday.

The latest report brings the countywide case count to 37,948.

The county reported no additional coronavirus-related fatalities Wednesday, leaving its COVID-19 death toll at 481.

The county's reported figures include previously unreported data added retroactively.

There were 73 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in San Mateo County as of Wednesday, of which 21 were being treated in intensive care units.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday that much of the state could soon move out of the most restrictive purple tier, KRON4 reports.

Newsom noted the state’s 7-day positivity rate plummeting from 11.4 percent a month ago to 3.5 percent now as especially encouraging.

“We will see counties move not just purple to red, but more red to orange. And I anticipate based on the numbers already in orange, you will see many more in that yellow tier as well, which is the most permissive of the tiers,” Newsom said.

Newsom and the leaders of the state Senate and Assembly announced an agreement Wednesday on a package of financial relief programs, including $600 payments to the state's low-income taxpayers.

Newsom, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Los Angeles, and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, jointly announced the legislative package, which state legislators are expected to consider in the coming days.

The package is headlined by the payments that Newsom has dubbed the "Golden State Stimulus" and would benefit households that received a state earned-income tax credit for 2020 and taxpayers that have Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers.

Also eligible for the $600 payments are households that are enrolled in several state programs including CalWORKS, Supplemental Security Income, State Supplementary Payment and the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants.

Residents with an annual income of $30,000 or less are eligible for the tax credit, while ITIN taxpayers include people like undocumented residents who were not eligible for federal stimulus payments.

Homeless advocates in San Francisco on Wednesday called on the city to purchase more hotels to continue to house the city's homeless residents as the COVID-19 pandemic endures.

The call to purchase the Shelter-In-Place, or SIP, hotels comes just as the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced earlier this month it would reimburse local governments 100 percent for the cost of hotels, retroactive to January 2020.

Alameda County has opened the county fairgrounds in Pleasanton for COVID-19 vaccinations.

In conjunction with Sutter Health and Stanford Health Care-ValleyCare, the county public health department is now administering the Moderna or the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to health care workers and people over 65, by appointment.

Education and childcare workers, emergency service workers, and agricultural workers are also currently being vaccinated under the county's Phase 1B Tier 1, which began Feb. 8.

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There have been 3,502,118 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 47,621 coronavirus-related deaths in California as of Wednesday evening according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The United States had 27,820,237 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 487,927 coronavirus-related fatalities as of Wednesday evening.

There have been 109,865,740 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2,428,155 coronavirus-related deaths reported globally as of Wednesday evening.

— Bay City News contributed to this report