County Deaths Reach 50. Case Rate Soars Above 200 per 100K.

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Amid early, hopeful signs that the rate of infection in the county’s senior care facilities is slowing, Sonoma County’s COVID-19 death toll reached the grim milestone of 50 on Monday.

This comes as state infectious disease strike team members are now in their second week of work with the county’s hard hit acute, skilled and residential senior care centers. It is among residents of these centers that at least 40 of the 50 Sonoma County confirmed COVID-19 deaths have been reported. And almost all of those in the past 5 weeks.

Meantime, with more than 320 new coronavirus cases reported since Saturday, the two week case rate stood at approximately 236 per 100 thosand residents, well above the 100 per 100 thousand threshold for coming off the state monitoring list.

County hospitalizations as reported by the state had fallen a bit since their peak, standing at 43 confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients, with 13 in county ICUs.

Effective August 6th, a county ordinance would allow county staff to issue citations and fines to those who defy local health orders. Individual fines are $100, while business fines could reach $10 thousand after repeated violations. The county is issuing warnings at first and is hoping for voluntary compliance.

And, a county hotline set up Thursday to field calls about violations has been busy, with almost 500 tips, with as of Monday no reported citations issued as of yet. The county’s permit office investigates about a quarter of the calls, and refers the rest to another agency for followup.

Still, county health officer Dr. Sundari Mase says much of the recent surge has been due to social gatherings, at which attendees ignore rules about mask use, social distancing, and number of attendees. The Sonoma Sheriffs office has received and investigated a variety of such calls in the past several weeks.

Santa Rosa’s city countil is expected to approved its own mask and health order ordinance at its Tuesday meeting, modeled closely on the county ordinance. This would allow the city to issue citations and fines to violators within city limits.

Sonoma County’s hotline to report health order violations is 1-833-723-3707. Or residents can email to safe707@sonoma-county.org.