Four COVID-19 deaths reported in county
As Santa Cruz County residents enjoyed the eased restrictions of the red tier in the Blueprint for a Safer Economy framework for the first time since the fall, four new deaths were reported in the jurisdiction’s coronavirus data dashboard.
The county death toll jumped from 187 deaths to 191 deaths Wednesday, marking the deaths of one woman and three men. All four of the individuals had at least one significant condition contributing to their deaths on top of COVID-19, side-by-side screenshots of the dashboard from Tuesday to Wednesday show. Three of the fatalities were Latino while one was white.
One of the dead was in their 30s, the youngest age group to have experienced loss due to COVID-19 in the last year in Santa Cruz County. Another one of the dead was in their 70s while the remaining two were in their 80s.
None of the individuals were residents at a congregate living facility, such as a skilled nursing facility or residential care facility.
In other statistics, the county is nearing the milestone of 15,000 total known cases of COVID-19. At the time, less than 300 of the cases are active; only 449 individuals who have contracted COVID-19 have required hospitalization to date.
Inequities in the context of the health crisis continue, as cases in the Latino population make up for more than half of the county’s total cases while the community makes up just 33% of the county population. Approximately 35% of all county deaths are linked to the Latino community, still more than the percentage of the jurisdiction it makes up.
Those older than the age of 60 make up for 94% of the county’s deaths, though the demographic makes up for a little more than 15% of the county’s total cases.
This is why health leaders at the local, state and federal levels are prioritizing these groups — coalitions of residents who have been most disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus — in vaccine distribution. As of Wednesday, more than 98,000 shots had been put in arms in Santa Cruz County; 43.8% of individuals vaccinated with those doses are white while 17.4% of individuals vaccinated with those doses are Latino.
Health leaders that present data to the media weekly have said in the past that work is done regularly to even out the vaccination numbers with the help of community organizations who serve the county’s most vulnerable. The racial equity mix may have been skewed early on by prioritizing those in Phase 1a earlier on without any kind of equity metric, Santa Cruz County Deputy Health Officer Dr. David Ghilarducci said in February. Since Ghilarducci’s remarks, vaccination rates in the county have slightly decreased for white people and increased for other groups, such as those identifying as multi-race or “other.”
California Department of Public Health’s dashboard shows that 58.6% of those 65 and older in Santa Cruz County have received at least one shot of the coronavirus vaccine.