Outbreak may involve virus variant

30 positive Coronavirus cases connected to Mountain View

Certain aspects of a recent Covid-19 outbreak at a Ukiah assisted living facility have Mendocino County Health Officer Dr. Andy Coren wanting to investigate further whether one of the virus’ worrisome variants may have been involved.

“Because the infection spread so easily and so well (at the facility), I’m concerned that there could be a variant that could be more transmissible, or less susceptible to the vaccination,” Coren said Friday, explaining that he contacted state health officials regarding sending in samples from “one or two cases that piqued my interest” at Mountain View assisted living facility for testing to determine if they involve one of the variants of Covid-19 that have been identified in recent months.

As of Friday, Coren said 23 residents and seven staff members at the facility on South Dora Street had tested positive for the virus.

“Two of the residents were hospitalized, and one passed away earlier this week,” he said, adding that “the majority of those cases had been vaccinated a couple of weeks before, but it was only one vaccine, so they were definitely in a category that is susceptible to infection.”

When asked if any samples of local Covid-19 cases had yet been tested for the variants, Coren said they had not.

As to the county’s other recent outbreaks, Coren said most of those are considered “resolved,” including the most recent outbreak identified in Round Valley, as well as an outbreak involving seven restaurants in Fort Bragg.

He said the outbreak at the

Mendocino County Jail is also considered to be under control even though there are two current cases, because those patients are people who were recently admitted to the jail and have no connection to the earlier outbreak. If there are three new cases that are connected, that will then be considered a new outbreak, he said.

He described the original outbreak at the jail as involving 147 cases, 130 of which were inmates and 17 of which were employees.

As to the number of Covid-19 cases overall in Mendocino County, there were 3,557 reported as of Feb. 19, with eight people hospitalized, two of whom were in the Intensive Care Unit. Coren said there have now been 42 deaths, “with the most recent being one Hispanic, one Native American, and one Caucasian.”

As to the vaccines, Coren said 21,000 doses had been administered in Mendocino County, and that “over 20-percent of our county’s population has had at least once vaccine.”