|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Contra Costa County continues to trend in the right direction when it comes to COVID-19, Contra Costa Health Services director Anna Roth told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
“Our case rates have continued to go down this last month,” Roth said. “We’re now at 7.9 cases per 100,000 (residents); that’s compared to 13.2 cases per 100,000 a month ago, so that’s a 40% decrease.”
The highest case rates in the county are now among 5-to-12-year-olds and 30-to-39-year-olds, Roth said.
“Testing has gone down a little bit, but we are still at 5,500 new tests per day; that’s compared to about 6,700 per day a month ago,” Roth said.
Cases in county detention facilities have dwindled to zero and countywide hospitalizations are down as well.
“We are at 59 patients hospitalized currently, compared to 83 a month ago,” Roth said. “We have 18 people in critical care, and that’s compared to 37 a month ago.”
The county is now administering about 3,800 vaccinations per day, 775 of which are first doses.
Some mask restrictions have eased this week in Contra Costa County, in settings not open to the general public like gyms and offices. No more than 100 people can gather without masks, and the owner of the private facility must verify that everyone going maskless is fully vaccinated.
For restaurants and other indoor public venues, the county must enter the yellow tier of infection rate as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have fewer than 95 COVID-19 hospitalizations countywide (Contra Costa has 59) and either have a countywide vaccination rate of at least 80% (Contra Costa is at about 73%) or be eight weeks past the date the FDA approves vaccines for children ages 5 to 11.
“We need 84,000 more people vaccinated to reach the overall 80%,” Roth sad. “We have 92,000 kids in our county who are within the ages of 5 to 11, so we really want to see those kids come in for vaccinations when those are approved, which we anticipate they will later this week.”
Deputy health officer Dr. Sofe Mekuria told the board the county has requested 20,000 doses of Pfizer’s version of the children’s vaccine, which is about one-third the dose of the adult version.
Why should anyone in Contra Costa County listen to anything Anna Roth and Chris Farnitano say now or ever again? These two people act like the king and queen of the county and seem to want COVID restrictions to last forever in a sorry attempt to keep their ability to control people’s lives.
“H” has it exactly right. I have been logging and charting the CoCo Health Dept. Covid data since 3/25/20. In the face of the waning cases here, Farnitano and Roth have “Implemented” this policy of having restaurants and coffee shops “ask for your papers” (aka your vax card) as a precondition of being able to serve you. They have gone to war with In N’ Out Burger, who have thankfully told them to shove it! Yesterday, the county reported just 37 “new cases.” In a county with more than one million residents, we have 18 people in the ICU “ostensibly there” by reason of Covid. Like a lot of other places with these kinds of “leaders,” it appears that having to show your “vax card,” is simply an artifice to try and claim some sort of praise for “stopping the virus” here. Furthermore, over the going on nearly two years of their efforts, it seems strange that they have never mounted any sort of “attack” on the communities within the County that have been the “wellspring” of the infections. Today, if it were not for Antioch, Pittsburg, Oakley and Richmond the pandemic would be over. Day after day, these communities, for whatever reason, have contributed an inordinate caseload. As of yesterday, the countywide infection rate is 8,578 cases per 100,000 residents. Antioch,12,883; Pittsburg, 12705; Oakley, 12,172; & Richmond,11,401. contrast that with Pleasant Hill (where they have closed the In N’ Out Burger for non-compliance), the number is 4,805 ( about half the countywide number). Personally, I will never vote for my County Supervisor again for being lead around by the nose by these “medical professionals.” And as far as Roth and Farnitano are concerned, we can do far better with new people in their positions.