As California continues to see concerning increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, there are some early signs that Omicron’s unprecedented surge is slowing.

The change is uneven across the state, but the numbers suggest California could peak in the latest surge. East Coast states that were hit earlier by the Omicron wave have already begun to see a sustained decline in infections.

California has recorded more than 7 million cases of coronavirus this week. The tally, recorded in state databases late Monday, comes a week after its 6 millionth coronavirus case was recorded.

Here’s what the numbers show:

Cases still high but leveling

California’s exponential case rate growth appears to be leveling off, though it will likely take a few days — after all the backlog of Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend reports — to be sure.

According to data released Tuesday that reflects numbers through Monday, California averaged 104,000 cases per day for the past seven-day period, slightly above the previous week’s rate of 101,000; the previous week, the state was reporting 55,000 cases a day. California’s case rate peaked at more than 115,000 cases per day in the middle of last week and fluctuated between 114,000 and 115,000 for a few days.

Some of the more populated areas of the state could start to see a leveling off in case rates. Southern California recorded 69,000 new cases a day in the past seven days, roughly flat from 71,000 a week earlier. The previous week, the region had 39,000 cases per day.

LA County

Los Angeles County saw a record number of coronavirus cases last week, nearly 42,000 a day. But based on numbers released since then, the county now averages about 38,000 cases per day.

Officials said the numbers released on Tuesday could be lower than expected due to reporting delays over the bank holiday weekend. A clearer picture may emerge later this week.

bay area

The Bay Area now averages around 19,000 daily coronavirus cases, a rate that has fluctuated between around 18,000 and 22,000 in the past week. The Greater Sacramento area recorded about 5,500 cases per day for the most recent weekly period. The capital region has fluctuated between 5,000 and 6,000 cases recently.

In Santa Clara County, sewage coronavirus levels began to drop about 1.5 weeks ago. Officials expect the drop to portend a sustained decline in coronavirus cases.

central valley

In the Greater San Joaquin Valley, an area that has generally lagged trends in Southern California and the Bay Area, cases continue to rise. The area has seen 9,300 cases per day over the past week, more than the 6,500 cases per day the previous week; the previous week, the region was recording 2,900 cases a day.

Rural Northern California

In rural northern California, around 750 cases per day were reported last week, up from around 680 the previous week, and more than double the roughly 300 cases per day reported in the sparsely populated region two weeks ago. .

The rate of positive tests for COVID-19 is falling

The rate at which California coronavirus tests come back positive has also begun to decline. For the seven-day period ending Jan. 10, California achieved a record positive test rate of 23.1%. Since then, the rate has fallen to 21.5% for the seven-day period that ended on Saturday. The rate is still very high; in comparison, at the beginning of December, it was around 2%.

A similar trend holds for Los Angeles County. LA County’s seven-day positive rate may have peaked at 22.7% for the seven-day period ending Jan. 3; for the weekly period that ended on Tuesday, the positivity rate was 16.3%. In the first week of December, it was around 1%.