California’s second surge of the coronavirus has resulted in a near doubling of weekly deaths since the spring — with almost 1,000 fatalities in the last week alone — and radically shifted the geography of the outbreak, a Times data analysis found.

And urban areas such as Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area are reporting fatality numbers just as high, if not higher, than in the spring.

In eight southern Central Valley counties, weekly COVID-19 deaths have jumped from about 20 a week in April to nearly 200 a week in the last two weeks, a Times analysis found.

For the seven-day period that ended Monday, 969 deaths were reported across California, the largest weekly death toll since the pandemic began.

During the springtime surge of the virus, the highest weekly death toll was during the week of April 21, when 553 deaths were reported.

San Bernardino County recorded 128 coronavirus fatalities in the seven-day period that ended Monday, almost quadruple the weekly death toll of 34 the week before.

Riverside County’s weekly death toll of 83 last week was about double what it was in April.

Orange County tallied 73 deaths last week; for the week of April 21, Orange County recorded six deaths.

Ventura County recorded 16 deaths last week; that county reported fewer than five deaths a week in April.

The worsening death toll comes as the coronavirus has spread rapidly among low-wage essential workers in jobs such as agriculture and food processing.

More than 40% of workers in Madera County are essential workers — making it the county with the third-highest share of these workers of any other county nationwide.

José Roberto Álvarez worked at one of several food distribution facilities briefly closed by officials after the county said they failed to report COVID-19 outbreaks.

State officials unwittingly transferred infected prisoners from the California Institution for Men in Chino and seeded new cases at Corcoran State Prison in Kings County and triggered an especially devastating outbreak at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County.

government’s top infectious diseases expert, said at a Brown University School of Public Health forum last week that some leaders “skipped over some of the checkpoints” recommended for a safer reopening and loosened stay-at-home orders without waiting for new cases to go down.

County — have seen weekly deaths return to — or exceed — springtime levels.

County‘s weekly death tally in the spring peaked at 329 in late April, then dropped as low as 194 in late June before climbing as high as 327 two weeks ago and 296 last week.

The region recorded as many as 67 deaths in a single week in April; two weeks ago, the Bay Area recorded 81 deaths.

San Diego County recorded its two worst weekly fatality counts in mid-July, tallying an average of 56 weekly deaths over two weeks — more than double its April average.

In the last two weeks, weekly fatalities are averaging about 31 a week.

Other counties with a sharp growth in recent COVID-19 deaths include Sacramento, Santa Barbara and Sonoma.

California’s cumulative COVID-19 death toll is more than 10,600.

Coronavirus cases among children and teenagers are surging in California, up 150% last month, a rate that outpaces COVID-19 cases overall and establishes minors as a small but growing share of the state’s COVID-19 cases.

Still, officials are expressing a note of optimism: Weekly cases and hospitalizations appear to have hit their second peak, even when factoring in a glitch in the state’s reporting system for new cases that was being resolved over the weekend.

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