Recent death brings toll to 20
A woman in her 80s became the 20th person in Tuolumne County to die from COVID-19 as 180 new cases were confirmed over the weekend, of which 120 are inmates at the Sierra Conservation Center state prison near Jamestown.
The only other information provided about the woman whose death was reported by the county Public Health Department in an update on Sunday was that she was a “resident at a local care facility,” though the specific facility was not named.
It follows the death of another woman in her 80s that was announced on Dec. 11 and also identified as a “resident at a local care facility.” One of 109 cases reported on Dec. 14 was also said to be a resident of an unspecified local care facility.
Michelle Jachetta, public health director for the county, said Monday afternoon that she will be mostly out of the office this week but was working to answer questions from The Union Democrat about the facility where the woman who died over the weekend was a resident and whether it was the same one as the other reported case and death.
The death reported over the weekend was also the 12th in the county since the start of this month amid an ongoing surge of cases locally and throughout California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a press conference on Monday it was “very likely” that he would have to extend a stay-at-home order for the 12-county San Joaquin Valley region, which includes Tuolumne and Calaveras counties and was originally set to expire on Dec. 28.
Newsom enacted the stay-at-home order on Dec. 6 due to intensive care unit availability in the region dipping below 15%. The region’s ICU availability as of Sunday was 0%.
The order imposes additional restrictions on local businesses and activi
ties that include shutting down all bars that don’t serve food, forcing restaurants to only offer takeout or delivery as opposed to outdoor or indoor dining, and further limiting the number of customers in retail stores to 20% of capacity.
New cases identified in the county over the weekend included 60 cases among the general unincarcerated population, bringing the total number of community cases since the start of the pandemic to 1,670.
Seven people in the county were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Sunday, with one of them in the ICU. Four of the six licensed ICU beds at Adventist Health Sonora were reportedly open as of Sunday, though hospital leaders have said many additional beds could be converted into ICUS if necessary.
The total number of cases at Sierra Conservation Center was 629 on Sunday, of which all but 16 have been confirmed since the start of an outbreak that began earlier this month.
However, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation website on Monday showed a total of 845 active cases among the roughly 3,030 inmates who were in custody and six among inmates who have recently been released.
No inmates at the prison have reportedly died from COVID-19.
There were 30 active cases among staff at SCC as of Monday, and 39 employees there have tested positive in the past 14 days. A total of 122 cases among SCC staff have been reported since the pandemic bega, with 92 of them having returned to work.
Sonora was recently cited in a New York Times chart as the metro area with the second fastest rate of new cases in the United States, though later dropped to 11th place and was in seventh on Monday.
County public health officials have said they believe the explosion of cases at the prison were included in the newspaper’s data for the chart and largely accounted for the initial high placement, though the rate of new cases in the community remained relatively high at 45.3 new cases each day per 100,000 people.