Sheriff: Cause of death pending for man, 38, with COVID-19
Honsal: ‘He was hanging out with friends and family the night before’
Sheriff William Honsal shared a few details during Tuesday morning’s Board of Supervisors meeting about the ninth Humboldt County resident who died and tested positive for COVID-19.
“We did have a 38-year-old male who did pass away last week,” Honsal told the supervisors. “An autopsy was done this week and as a coroner’s case I can release a little bit more information.”
Honsal said the man had “underlying conditions.”
“He was a fairly healthy individual, and the case is still under investigation,” Honsal said. “The cause and manner of death has not been decided yet. At the autopsy, he was tested for COVID and he did come back positive. At the time of his death he was positive for COVID, but at this time we do not have enough information to share whether or not he died of that or not but he was asymptomatic.”
It’s unclear whether the man knew he was infected with the coronavirus. Honsal said that “he was hanging out with friends and family the night before.”
Dr. Teresa Frankovich, the county’s top health official, noted the coronavirus is a risk for all ages.
“I think it’s really important for people of all ages to understand that there’s a risk of this infection,” she told the supervisors. ” … We’re also we’re seeing more and more long-term health impacts of coronavirus infection, even people who were not severely ill.”
Frankovich told the board that the increasing number of cases locally could have put the county back in California’s orange, slightly more-restrictive state tier, but the equity measure is keeping Humboldt County in the least-restrictive yellow tier. The state’s equity measure is intended to address low-income and minority communities that might be disproportionally affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Humboldt County has reported a cumulative total of
558 cases of COVID-19 and nine deaths. As of Monday, Frankovich said, there were currently 21 people in isolation and 88 people in quarantine. Prompted by 4th District Supervisor Virginia Bass as to whether 88 is “a lot,” Frankovich said there was a cluster of cases related to a “house of worship.”
“We have had close to 200 in quarantine at one time,” Frankovich said. “88 isn’t bad comparatively.”
Frankovich spoke briefly about the plans being made to distribute vaccines, when one is approved, to Humboldt
County residents.
“The state is actually having us do some preparatory work about what could it vaccination could look like in Humboldt County,” she said. “So we do have a team working on that.”
She said the general public would not be among the first to receive the vaccine.
“The primary target groups would probably be health care workers and vulnerable populations and the vaccine would likely be fairly limited at the outset in terms of number of doses and would grow over
time,” she said.
She said with the coming flu season, the county “really wants to encourage people to get vaccinated.”
While the meeting was taking place, several supervisors received their flu vaccines.
First District Supervisor Rex Bohn joked while he received his injection.
“I’m that 66-year-old vulnerable population who shouldn’t be catching anything … except hell,” he said.