Counties failnew reopening measure
S.F., Contra Costa, San Mateo, Sonoma must reduce virus rates in disadvantaged communities
There could be trouble ahead for four Bay Area counties’ reopening plans after data released Tuesday revealed they are failing to meet benchmarks set by state health officials to stop COVID-19 from tearing through disadvantaged communities.
California added its “equity metric” last week to the list of criteria counties must meet before they can advance through the colorcoded tiers created to guide the reopening of shuttered businesses and activities. Counties with big disparities in test positivity rates in poorer neighborhoods and communities of color may not be allowed to progress within the reopening system — and must promise to direct more resources toward testing and contact tracing in coronavirus hot spots.
On Tuesday, data showed San Francisco, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Sonoma counties were among 12 statewide whose corona
virus infection rates were particularly high in those neighborhoods and did not meet the requirement. All others in the Bay Area, including Alameda and Santa Clara counties, met the benchmark.
No Bay Area counties’ positions changed Tuesday, and officials said no counties have so far been held back from advancing because of the equity metric, but added that could happen if those that are falling short don’t improve.
“We are incentivizing counties to reduce those infections across every neighborhood,” Dr. Erica Pan, the state’s acting public health officer, said Tuesday. “The counties with the lowest
disparities or the least differences are going to be able to move more quickly through the color tiers, while those with bigger disparities are going to move slower.”
The metric is California’s most aggressive move yet to try to address the global pandemic’s disparate impact on its Black, Latinx and Pacific Islander residents. Although Latinx people make up less than 40% of California’s population, they account for more than 60% of coronavirus cases and nearly half of deaths, according to the California Department of Public Health.
In the Bay Area, coronav irus cases likew ise have exploded in poorer, predominantly Black and L at in x nei g hborhood s such as Oakland’s Fruitvale District and East San
Jose. Many residents in those neighborhoods are essential workers who face a greater risk of contracting the virus and may pass it on to family members or roommates because the Bay Area’s housing crisis often forces the less-wealthy to live in crowded or multigenerational homes where isolation is impossible.
Whether counties satisfy the state’s equity measure depends on what percentage of coronavirus tests come back positive in neighborhoods the state has determined are particularly at risk. Those areas are census tracts that rank in the bottom 25% of their county on California’s Healthy Places Index, which considers factors such as poverty and education level.
Counties won’t be able to move into less-restrictive tiers until the positive test rate within those census tracts falls below a certain threshold, the state says.
In Contra Costa and San Mateo counties, both of which are now in the state’s red tier, the positivity rates in their most at-risk areas were 6.8% and 5.3% respectively — twice the rate for the counties’ residents as a whole. To advance to the orange tier, which would allow more businesses to reopen, positivity rates will need to drop to 5.2% or less in those at-risk communities.
Counties can’t go backward into more restrictive tiers solely because of the equity metric, but they will remain in a holding pattern and must submit a plan explaining how they’ll increase testing and quarantine resources in hard-hit neighborhoods. The metric only applies to larger counties with populations of 106,000 or more residents.
Contra Costa Health Services officials said they have opened free COVID-19 testing sites in Richmond and added a weekend testing at a site in Bay Point, two cities with neighborhoods that rank low within the county’s Healthy Places index.
“We are cautiously optimistic that we will continue to see a downward trend in testing positivity rates in all parts of the county,” agency leaders wrote in a statement a spokesman provided Tuesday. “But nothing is a given with COVID, so we will need to see how things go and make adjustments as needed.”
San Mateo County officials, who last week praised the new metric even as they predicted they might fail to meet it, said they have worked to expand testing, improve contact tracing and provide financial support for housing or food to help people stay isolated. The county’s most at-risk areas include parts of Redwood City, San Mateo and East Palo Alto.
San Francisco, which is in the orange tier, had a rate of 3%, higher than the 2.1% maximum to reach the state’s least restrictive reopening level.
Santa Clara and Alameda counties cleared the benchmark with positivity rates in their most vulnerable neighborhoods of 3.7% and 3.9% respectively. In each case those figures were about double the rates for county residents as a whole.