San Francisco, Apr 6 (IANS): Coronavirus cases have rebounded in the US West Coast's Bay Area for the last week ending April 2, with the average number of daily new infections at 475, up 8.7 per cent from the prior week ending March 26, according to a media report.

The data could indicate that California is beginning to fall in line with the rest of the US, where coronavirus infections have steadily plateaued or increased due to more infectious variants, Xinhua news agency quoted the San Francisco Chronicle report as saying on Monday.

In the first week of this year, an average of 4,500 cases was reported in the Bay Area each day.

Weekly Covid-19 deaths averaged 78 for the week ending April 4, down from 113 reported in the previous week.

As of Monday, the cumulative death toll in the Bay Area stood at 5,957.

Across California, the pandemic has taken at least 59,279 lives.

"On the West Coast, we see a leveling off... We may go back up a little bit. We may hit bottom and bounce up a little bit," George Rutherford, an infectious disease expert at University of California San Francisco, was quoted as saying.

On April 2, Governor Gavin Newsom's office said it was preparing to retire the state's colour-coded tiered reopening system as vaccination rates improved and coronavirus cases continued to drop.

The state plans to open vaccine access to everyone 16 and older in the mid of April as supply improves.