At least 101 new coronavirus deaths and 6,414 new cases were were reported in California on July 30. Over the past week, there have been an average of 8,728 cases per day, about the same as the average two weeks earlier.
As of Friday afternoon, there have been at least 494,900 cases and 9,023 deaths in California since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a New York Times database.
The total U.S. death toll surpassed 150,000 on Wednesday, far eclipsing predictions made by President Trump and leading experts. And even these figures are likely to be undercounts, experts say.
The rising cases and deaths in California have felt maddening for residents, in part because the vast majority appear to take the threat seriously. 74 percent of Californians believe that people should always wear masks in public, the latest statewide survey by the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California showed.
“The thing that makes me optimistic is that the people who are trying to address the pandemic are realizing we can’t just put out nice public health announcements,” said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, the vice dean for population health and health equity at the School of Medicine at U.C. San Francisco.
“There are big structural factors that make it challenging to control, and when things are challenging in one part of our community, the entire community can’t really do the things it wants to do and open up.”