Doctors Hopeful Bay Area Sees Transition to Endemic as COVID Cases Drop

As Contra Costa County is lifting its vaccine verification rules, the city of San Jose is ramping their rules up.

Friday is day one for a new order, requiring proof of vaccination to attend events of 50 or more people at San Jose city venues.

A big question is do people feel safe enough to even show up?

Some medical experts said the encouraging trend that we’re seeing around COVID-19 cases dropping is not an illusion.

“I gotta, kind of trust the science on what it is that we’re seeing and the trends that we’re seeing right now and kind of go for it,” said San Jose resident Billy Ward.

Santa Clara County Public Health cautiously agrees as the Omicron sub variant cases rose only slightly this week to 30 cases overall.

“Every surge that we’ve been seeing has been different for a variety of reason due to the nature of the variant. So, I think we can be encouraged by the fact that those numbers are going down. The pressure on our emergency rooms has eased,” said Santa Clara County Assistant Health Office Dr. Monica Roy.

Santa Clara Valley Medical Center reported Friday that it hit a peak of 158 COVID-19 patients admitted two weeks ago and Friday’s numbers were 94, a 40% drop. Most with less severe symptoms.

“Everyone’s talking about going towards this endemic phase and it looks like the ingredients are probably there," said Dr. Sanjay Kurani, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Medical Director.

"I know we have to wait and see but we have quite a bit of immunity, especially in this area within Santa Clara County. We are seeing a variant that right now, it looks to be less virulent as well and the numbers are coming down.”

Medical experts NBC Bay Area talked to Friday said they would certainly agree that cautious optimism is the best approach.

One way we’ll be able to monitor the situation is how the numbers go .. and what happens as more and more people begin venturing out to events again.