Covid-19: Another death reported
Number of new cases overall still steadily declining
The latest Covid-19 news for Mendocino County was mixed early this week as the number of new cases continues to fall, while another resident succumbed to the virus.
“Things are finally improving in the county in a substantial, and I hope a sustained, way,” said Dr. Drew Colfax, an emergency room physician who works at Adventist Health Ukiah Valley, during his latest Local Coronavirus Update broadcast on KZYX&Z Monday. “Our daily case rate has dropped over 50 percent over the last two weeks, (and) we added only 85 cases over the last week.”
However, county officials reported later Monday afternoon that another resident died recently from the virus, marking the 87th death.
“Of the most recent deaths, two were unvaccinated Hispanic men in their early 50s, and one was an unvaccinated 80-year-old Hispanic woman,” Mendocino County Public Health Officer Dr. Andy Coren told the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.
As for outbreaks, Coren said that an outbreak in Round Valley/Covelo is still simmering with “occasional new cases, which we think may be driven by the influx of trimmigants (seasonal marijuana trimmers) into the North County.”
He said a recent outbreak in the Sherwood Oaks skilled nursing facility in Fort Bragg had all but resolved, “but a traveler tested positive on the last day of quarantine, so that’s being extended for two more rounds of testing.”
As for the declining number of new cases overall, Coren said that “clearly our third wave seems to be behind us, but I am concerned about the possibility of another winter surge despite the increase in vaccination rates, because cases and hospitalizations are not as low as they were last fall before Halloween, when the winter surge began.” He again described the ongoing pandemic as “being driven by, and affecting mostly, people who are unvaccinated.”
To get “back to normal,” Coren said, “we need everyone to do two things: Continue (protocols such as masking, social distancing and testing) and to get vaccinated.”
As for the ages of Covid-19 patients, Coren said that the number of cases among children between the ages of 5 and 11 has been increasing significantly since August, which he described as a “concern.”