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California’s COVID numbers are on the rise thanks, in part, to new subvariants, suggesting an earlier-than-normal start to the summer season. The percentage of COVID tests coming back with positive results in the state rose to 5.3% for the week that ended June 3, up from 2.

2% the month before. The numbers are still relatively low — last summer’s peak positive test rate was 13.1% — but the increases have the attention of doctors and health officials as the summer travel season begins.



“Numbers are definitely going up,” said Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious disease at Kaiser Permanente Southern California. Among Kaiser’s 4.

8 million Southern California members, the increase in COVID is mostly among non-hospitalized people. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported an average of 106 COVID cases for the week ending June 2. That’s up from 67 cases a day for the week that ended May 12.

“We have seen this happen over the last 4 1/2 years. We know we tend to see another wave around this time,” Hudson said. This one “started a little bit earlier, so it may crest a little earlier, and oftentimes we don’t see those hospitalized cases until a little further in.

” COVID levels also are rising in wastewater. In Los Angeles County, sewage levels were at 16% of the winter peak for the week that ended May 25, up from 8% for the week that ended May 4. In Santa Clara County — the Bay Area’s most populous county — COVID levels in.

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