County’s COVID rates up slightly since June reopening

STOCKTON — Nearly a month after California completely reopened its economy, the COVID19 case rate and test positivity rates in San Joaquin County have risen slightly.

Dr. Maggie Park, the county’s public health officer, presented a COVID-19 update to the board of supervisors on Tuesday for the first time in four weeks. Park said the new COVID-19 case rate had risen to 3.7 per 100,000 residents since the last time she was in board chambers.

In addition, the county’s test positivity rate rose to 2.6%.

When she last presented COVID-19 numbers to supervisors, the new case rate was 3.3 per 100,000 residents, and the test positivity rate was 2%.

“This is not currently alarming news, as we were expecting numbers to increase as the state reopened,” Park said. “As we open back up, people are beginning to hold large gatherings and enter businesses unmasked, and that provides an increased opportunity for transmission.”

The county’s transmission rate also increased to 1.3 over the last month, up from .8 in mid June. That means every person infected with COVID-19 has the potential to transmit the virus to at least one other individual.

The number of total COVID-19 cases had increased to 75,752 Tuesday, up from 74,419 reported on June 15. Deaths from COVID19 were at 1,447, an increase of 15 from the month prior.

Hospitalizations in the county’s seven facilities from the

virus also increased slightly from 40 last month to 43 Tuesday.

The increase in COVID numbers can also be linked to the rise of the Delta variant, which Park said was now at 25 cases in the county and has a 60% transmission rate. The Delta variant is now the dominant strain in California, with 43% of residents infected with COVID carrying it, she said.

Park said 47.1% of the county’s eligible residents are now vaccinated, while 11.5% of people are partially vaccinated.

In an effort to encourage more residents to become vaccinated, county public health will have COVID clinics across the county in the coming weeks.

In Lodi, a clinic will be held today at Ranch San Miguel at 620 S. Cherokee Lane, and one will be held at Lodi Middle School, 945 S. Ham Lane, on July 19. A clinic will also be held at Henderson School at 13451 N. Extension Road, on July 22.

Residents can visit myturn.ca.gov for more vaccine information.

Board vice chairman Chuck Winn said while there is a large amount of information available to residents about the three COVID-19 vaccines being administered, there are still those who are hesitant to get one because the safety and list of side affects are still being assessed.

“Everyone knows there is a ton of information out there regarding COVID, vaccinations, lockdowns and all sorts of goings on,” board vice chairman Chuck Winn said. “I think the one thing that gets lost in all of this is, these are still exprimental. It usually takes eight to 10 years to verify safety of these drugs. Am I correct?”

Park said if the vaccines weren’t safe, they would not have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

“These vaccines have been through the same rigorous tests and trials any other drug would go through,” she said. “And while they were approved on an emergency basis, these are not experimental, as the trials were conducted on humans to determine whether or not they were safe or unsafe.”

Winn added that while he supported efforts to get more residents vaccinated, individuals should be allowed to make their own decisions and not be pressured to do so.

“I believe every individual needs to make their own assumptions and assessments with how they want to proceed,” he said. “This aggressive effort to encourage, or — and I don’t like using this term — to shame people into getting vaccinated is wrong, because there are a large number of people in the community who are resistant for a variety of reasons.”

Park said San Joaquin County Public Health Services will now provide a weekly COVID-19 report on its website rather than update a daily dashboard. The report can be found at www.sjcphs.org/Disease/Epidemiology.aspx.