LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Several new cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Lake County due to testing results officials reported on Monday.
Lake County’s COVID-19 cases totaled 96 on Monday morning, up from 87 reported on Saturday, according to Lake County Public Health.
Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace did not immediately respond to a request from Lake County News for more information about the newly reported cases.
Of Lake County’s 96 cases, 18 are active, of which four are hospitalized, Public Health reported.
Public Health said 77 local cases are recovered. The agency reported Lake County’s first death attributed to the virus last week.
To date, 5,184 COVID-19 tests have been conducted in Lake County, with the results of 491 of those cases pending, Public Health said.
On Monday, the California Department of Public Health reported that California has 271,684 confirmed cases to date, with 6,337 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
As of July 5, local health departments have reported 16,175 confirmed positive cases in health care workers and 94 deaths statewide, the California Department of Public Health said.
The agency also said that California's positivity rate – a key indicator of community spread – is trending upward in the 14-day average, as are hospitalization rates.
In a Monday afternoon briefing, Gov. Gavin Newsom said California is seeing infection rates similar to those at the start of the pandemic.
While death rates appear to be lower, Newsom cautioned that hospitalizations, ICU numbers and mortality are lagging indicators.
The California Department of Public Health reported on Monday that more than 4,793,353 tests have been conducted statewide for the virus.
“As testing capacity continues to increase across the state, an increase in the number of positive cases has been expected – increasing the importance of positivity rates to find signs of community spread,” the state reported.
Over the weekend, California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly urged laboratories in California to prioritize testing turnaround for individuals who are most at risk of spreading the virus to others.
Ghaly said the state, working with public and private partners, has increased access to diagnostic testing over the past six months, with the capacity rising from 2,000 tests per day to 100,000 per day in a few months’ time.
However, Ghaly said that, as more states begin to scale their testing capabilities, new constraints are materializing within the supply chain. “Simultaneously laboratories are becoming overwhelmed with high numbers of specimens, slowing down processing timelines.”
Those delays, said Ghaley, will present “significant challenges” in the ability to care for people in the hospital where testing helps make appropriate treatment decisions and in the ability to appropriately isolate those who are sick in order to box in the virus and cut transmission rates.
Due to these new limitations, Ghaly said California is recommending that laboratories prioritize the processing of specimens of individuals who are COVID-19 symptomatic and those who are hospitalized or in long-term care facilities, including skilled nursing facilities such as veterans homes, assisted living facilities such as residential care facilities for the elderly, and for specimens of patients in institutional settings, including prisons and jails, in order to timely implement appropriate interventions to mitigate the spread of the virus within the facility.
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New COVID-19 cases reported in Lake County; officials say positivity rate trending up statewide
- Elizabeth Larson
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