California has lowest COVID-19 case rate in the continental U.S.

After a tough fall and winter, with record numbers of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in intensive care units and a high death toll, California now has the lowest coronavirus case rate in the continental United States.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows California's seven-day rate of new cases is 40.3 per 100,000 people, compared to the nationwide rate of 135.3 per 100,000 people. Hawaii is faring slightly better, at 39.1 cases per 100,000 people, while Michigan is continuing to struggle with a surge in cases and is seeing 483 cases per 100,000 people.

California is home to more than 39.5 million people, and over the last week, the state reported an average of 2,320 new cases per day, down 13 percent from two weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times reports. During the winter, there were more than 40,000 new cases being reported a day, and at the height of the surge, 600 deaths were recorded daily. Today, an average of 81 deaths are being reported a day, and the number of COVID-19 patients in the hospital is at its lowest rate since last spring, the Times reports.

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Californians are being urged to keep wearing masks, wash their hands, and social distance, and those measures, as well as an effort to quickly vaccinate residents, is helping matters. So far, 27 million vaccine doses have been distributed in the state, with 44 percent of Californians having received at least one shot and more than 25 percent fully vaccinated.

"All of the information currently available to us does indicate that our vaccines appear to be highly effective in preventing transmission, hospitalizations, and deaths, even with the increased presence of variants," Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said on Wednesday. Read more at the Los Angeles Times.