LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County’s Public Health officer said Monday that the local COVID-19 case rate and number of active infections are at record-high numbers and he urged people to be prepared to get the vaccine and to take precautions in the meantime because of the virus’ spread throughout the community.
Dr. Gary Pace gave a Monday update on the local COVID-19 situation in a Facebook video.
Pace said that the statewide case growth curve is starting to flatten a little bit, which he attributed to the beginning of a decrease in the Thanksgiving surge and stay-at-home orders in other parts of the state having some effect.
He said that now that the Christmas weekend is past, there could be another case increase in the next few weeks.
The hospitalization rate usually lags a week or two behind the positive case rate, and Pace said the hospitalization curve is still on an upward swing.
Lake County is in the Northern California region, one of five regions the state is using to track case rates and hospitalizations. So far, that’s the only region not in a lockdown because of falling below a 15-percent intensive care unit bed availability.
Pace said Northern California still has about a 25-percent ICU bed capacity, while the Central Valley and Southern California are each under 5 percent and the Bay Area has about 10 percent.
He said Lake County’s case rate started rising in November and is now at 41 cases per 100,000, the highest it’s ever been.
Lake County’s testing positivity rate is now 11 percent, Pace said.
As of Monday, Lake County had a total caseload of 1,791 cases, 1,462 cases recovered and 23 deaths, according to Public Health.
Lake County on Monday had 300 active cases, which Pace said also is the highest ever for that measure.
Twelve residents currently are hospitalized with 98 total hospitalizations to date, the county reported.
Of those hospitalized cases, Pace said 50 have been transferred to other regional hospitals in Napa, Sonoma, San Francisco and Ukiah.
Pace expects to see increased pressure in trying to move people out of the county to other ICU beds in the region. “It’s a little bit of a tight situation we might find ourselves in in the coming weeks.”
New approach to case management
COVID-19 cases are now showing up all over Lake County, Pace said.
He said outbreaks in the tribal community and in local skilled nursing facilities appear to be slowing down, and while schools are closed now for winter break some were reporting cases as well.
There also are reports of positive cases amongst employees at small and large businesses alike, Pace said.
Pace said Public Health is taking a new approach to managing cases in businesses. “Our No. 1 goal is to protect the health of the public and decrease the spread out in the community.”
He said Public Health is not trying to close down businesses for the 24-hour disinfection period – which doesn’t appear to have been effective – but working directly with them on how to disinfect and do contact tracing.
So far, the business community has been very responsive, as it also wants to keep the community safe and stay open, he said.
Pace said his staff is focusing on community outreach as it doesn’t have enough staff for contact tracing on the very large number of cases and, in some instances, people are not being cooperative. The county also is still working to get enforcement officers in place to work on compliance with the county’s COVID-19 enforcement ordinance.
Vaccine update
Pace said that Lake County has received just over 1,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, and as of Monday morning a little over 300 health care workers had been vaccinated.
He said the county is following the guidelines handed down from the state that prioritize the order of those who receive the vaccine. He said the first tier include staff at hospitals and nursing homes, EMS/first responders and then dialysis centers.
One of the challenges is that the state is not communicating with the county about how much of the vaccine it can expect to get. Pace said Lake County Public Health is ordering more vaccine doses every week, and sometimes they get the doses and sometimes they don’t.
He said the hospitals are supposed to be getting more vaccine shipments through their corporate structures, but there also is a breakdown in communication between the hospitals and the state.
Once the hospitals receive more of their own supply, Pace said the county can back off and redirect its vaccine supply elsewhere.
Two local skilled nursing facilities have an agreement with CVS, which Pace said will send out workers to vaccinate staff and residents.
However, Pace said he just got word a few days ago that those vaccinations won’t take place before the middle of January, so Public Health is going to start vaccinating skilled nursing facility staff as soon as possible.
Once CVS and Walgreens – which are partnering with the state of California to provide Pfizer vaccines to residents and staff in long-term care facilities – begin distributing the vaccines locally, Pace said Public Health will back off of its efforts for those facilities.
On Monday a vaccination clinic was held for EMS and first responders, and Pace said another clinic for that group will be held on Wednesday.
He expects that next week the next tier of vaccinations – for outpatient clinic workers and In-Home Supportive Services workers who are providing services in other people’s homes – could begin, with two standup clinics planned for that group.
The next group will be jail medical staff and those working in other congregate living facilities, and then toward the end of January the focus will move to dentists, labs, optometrists and residents of congregate living situations, he said.
Pace said the state is working on guidelines for the next tier after that, which is expected to include essential workers, people over age 74 and those with chronic medical illnesses.
“We’re really trying to support the medical community right now” because they’re needed to keep people safe during the outbreak, Pace said.
He reassured people about the vaccine’s safety, noting that while there have been some reports of people having allergic reactions to the vaccine, that on the local level they’re getting good results.
Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require second vaccinations about three weeks apart. Pace said so far there have been no issues with the first shot but it’s possible that the second shots could have more of a side effect.
He said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is now estimating that up to 85 percent of the United States’ population will need to get the vaccine before the country can go back to normal.
As such, Pace encouraged people to get the vaccine as soon as it becomes available to them, both to protect against the virus and because there could be delays due to issues with the supply chain at various times.
Pace continued to warn that there are difficult months ahead and that the holidays could lead to another case surge.
“It’s a different landscape right now” due to more virus in the community, he said, cautioning that being in crowded stores right now is a bad idea.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
Lake County Public Health officer gives COVID-19 update; case rate rising, another post-holiday surge possible
- Elizabeth Larson
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