Mountain View cases reach 31
Two residents have died
The Covid-19 outbreak at Mountain View assisted living facility in Ukiah has grown to include 31 cases and two deaths, Mendocino County Public Health Officer Andy Coren reported this week.
“It is a large outbreak involving 23 residents and eight staff members,” Coren told the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors Feb. 23, explaining that two residents “were hospitalized and passed away.” He described the outbreak as “being attributed to a delay in reporting a staff member who became positive because that facility sends their labs to Texas, and there was a significant delay, so that staff member worked for a full week (while) transmitting her infection.”
Coren said Public Health is now providing “technical assistance” to the facility, including an additional testing mechanism that “gives them an immediate response” in terms of positive results.
“A new outbreak has been discovered within the California Conservation Corps, involving six new cases,” Coren said. “The CCC has their own testing procedures, and we have a call set up to discuss that with them.”
Overall, Coren said the causes of the outbreaks “in our community continue to be predominantly community spread (44 percent), household spread (27 percent), congregate living (9 percent) and workplace (7 percent).”
According to the last numbers the county gave Wednesday morning, there were a total of 3,795 cases identified so far, with a daily average of 11.71 positive cases, which is down significantly from the beginning of the month. By contrast, on Feb. 6, there were 41 new cases reported and a daily average of 21.43. There were also 308 people in quarantine and 222 in isolation.
As of Feb. 24, the numbers of active cases and recent contacts were down significantly, with only 101 people in quarantine and 70 in isolation. Also as of Wednesday, there were five people hospitalized, two of them in the Intensive Care Unit. There have been a totalof43deaths.
As far as vaccines, Coren said “our vaccine supply is still a major challenge, however; we have developed a close relationship with Adventist Health, and they are now regularly telling us how much they have administered, and where they want to have their clinics. They have also been open to suggestion to administer more (vaccines) in Willits and on the coast to address the older populations.”
He reported Tuesday that the county had administered at least 22,000 vaccine doses, including 14,000 first doses, “and that represents 20 percent of our population that is over 16 years old.”
Coren said the sign-up process for vaccines is presenting challenges, as “last week we had some noncounty residents who tried to jump into Mendocino to get vaccinated, and became incensed and even unruly when their credentials were denied. This is supposed to get fixed soon at the state level.”