(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)California's coronavirus case rate is now the lowest in the continental U.S., an achievement that reflects months of hard-won progress against the pandemic in the aftermath of the state's devastating fall and winter surge. At the other end of the spectrum is Michigan, which has far and away the highest seven-day case rate in the nation, at 483 per 100,000 people. Last winter, California's average peaked at more than 40,000 new cases per day. Though those numbers have yo-yoed slightly day to day, they remain among the lowest the state has seen since last spring. Now, 38 of California’s 58 counties have reached the orange tier, and three have entered the final, most-lenient yellow tier.
