California is "starting to see the decline" in new cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations have stabilized and are "declining somewhat," the state's top health official said on Tuesday.

Mark Ghaly said during a video conference that the current number of hospitalizations, 20, 263, is down 8.5% over the past two weeks.

On average, California has had 35,669 new cases daily for the past two weeks, Ghaly said.

Meanwhile, California public health officials are also keeping a close eye on another COVID-19 variant that has been detected in at least a dozen counties.