As COVID-19 Cases Rise, Supervisors Briefed On Virus Surge Locally

Share with Friends

As some 33 million Californians began the week under regional Stay at Home orders, Sonoma County Supervisors were briefed in detail on Tuesday about the COVID-19 numbers and response locally.

Late last week, Sonoma County health officer Dr. Sundari Mase decided not to join Marin, San Francisco, Contra Costa, Santa Clara and Alameda counties, along with the city of Berkeley in adopting tighter lockdowns before being required by the state.

Health officers in those counties say they want to remain ahead of the tide of rising COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. The state requires regions to institute Stay at Home orders when available ICU beds dip below 15% of capacity.

Meantime Mase told supervisors that although Sonoma County case numbers and positivity numbers remain lower than many other Bay Area counties, the trend is not encouraging. Last week saw both the highest one day tally of new cases at 343, and the first time cases exceeded 1000 in Sonoma County over a 7 day period.

Dr. Mase also said that the county’s ICU capacity numbers are now in line with state reporting guidelines, and show just 10.5% of staffed ICU beds currently available in Sonoma County. But she said the county’s 77 ICU beds could be expanded quickly to approximately 110 on short notice during any surge. And she said the county’s hospitals had a surge capacity of more than 260 additional beds.

The current state figures for Sonoma County (Image 1) show an unadjusted case rate of about 19 per 100 thousand, and a positivity rate of just under 6%. These are both lower than the state average. However Sonoma County trails the Bay Area region as a whole in ICU capacity available. For the region that number is currently near 25%. Current state reporting put Sonoma County’s staffed ICU bed availability at 19%. This differs from the figure provided to supervisors by the county health officer on Tuesday. However the variance may be due to a lag time in reporting to the state as more beds fill up locally.

The health officer said the county may be at a disadvantage if lockdowns in other Bay Area counties succeed in slowing the rate of hospitalizations and ICU usage, as that might delay the imposition of stricter Stay at Home orders. In that case our county could fall behind the region in controlling the spread of the virus. And she said Bay Area residents may travel to Sonoma and other counties not currently under a Stay at Home order to shop and dine, potentially casing additional virus spread here.

For now county health officials say they are closely monitoring local health metrics, to determine if joining much of the Bay Area in an early lockdowns may be necessary. Napa, Solano and San Mateo are among the counties that, like Sonoma, did not choose to adopt an early Stay at Home order in line with the central Bay Area counties.

Meanwhile, in Southern California, San Luis Obispo, Ventura and other more rural counties are asking to be separated from the Southern California COVID region. Health officials in those counties say the creation of a Central Coast region would more accurately reflect their conditions, which they contend are much less dire than those in faced Los Angeles county, home to 10 million Californians.