[NOTE: Details on Solano County below.]

Coronavirus:  How close are Bay Area counties to coming off state monitoring list?

Santa Clara and San Mateo are nearing the threshold

It’s been close to a month since Gov. Gavin Newsom announced additional restrictions for counties on the state’s COVID-19 monitoring list. In that time, the list has grown to encompass every county in the Bay Area and over 90% of the state’s population.

Is there anywhere in the Bay Area close to escaping the list? We’re tracking the metrics county-by-county below, using data compiled by this news organization. Currently, hospitalizations are trending in the right direction in most of the region, but there isn’t one county that meets the per-capita case threshold necessary to come off the list, according to our calculations.

San Mateo County, with a rate of 12.5 cases per 10,000 residents over the past two weeks, is closest to falling below the state threshold of 10, followed by Santa Clara County, with a per-capita rate of 13.9 per 10,000.

The California Department of Public Health uses six criterion to determine if there is elevated disease transmission, increasing hospitalizations or limited hospital capacity in a county.

1. Testing rate: Below 1.5 per 1,000 population per day over past 7 days
2. Case rate: Above 10 per 10,000 population over the past 14 days
3. Positivity rate: 8% or higher over past 7 days if 14-day case rate is less than 10 but higher than 2.5 per 10,000
4. Hospitalizations: Increase of 10% or more in 3-day average vs. previous 3 days
5. ICU capacity: 20% or less beds available
6. Ventilator capacity: 25% or less ventilators available

Falling out of line with any one of the six metrics for three days lands a county on the list. To come off, a county has to meet all six markers for three straight days.

Under the most recent health order, counties on the monitoring list for three days are also forced to close gyms, personal-care services, nonessential offices, places of worship and malls in addition to the statewide closures of bars, indoor dining and other indoor entertainment. To be eligible to open schools for in-person learning, a county must be off the list for 14 days.

Note: CDPH uses a 7-day lag when tracking its data, while this news organization compiles the most up-to-date data from county health departments. Recently discovered underreporting of tests and cases could skew the data. Because of the faulty data, CDPH has temporarily paused adding or subtracting counties from the monitoring list. There is no standardized number of ICUs and ventilators per county publicly available, so that data is not included below.