One metric is barring county from next reopening phase

EL CENTRO -- The Imperial County Department of Public Health informed the Board of Supervisors Tuesday morning that the county had met all the metrics within COVID-19 except one to move forward into the second phase of Stage 2 of the county’s recovery plan.

That is the phase that would allow for business activities deemed “higher risk,” such as walk-in retail and dinein restaurant service.

The metric might not be easy to obtain quickly, as no more than 8 percent of all new COVID-19 tests over a seven-day period can come back positive.

Currently, that percentage is running closer to 25 percent, or one in four.

County Health Director Janette Angulo began her presentation with some alarming figures.

While the county already had the highest COVID-19 hospitalization rates in the state, with more than 30 cases per 100,000 residents, that figure has just shot up to 37.4. Los Angeles County had the second highest rate in the state at 15.3 hospitalizations per 100,000 people.

“We are on the front end of the curve, and cases are increasing,” Angulo said.

County Health Officer Steve Munday said Mexico and its cases have made the county’s situation worse, as the hospitals in Baja, California have been turning patients away because they are way over capacity. Many of those patients cross the border to visit one of the two county hospitals.

“There is no doubt what is happening in Baja is impacting us,” Munday said.

Angulo said the response to move forward is ready to be sent to the state once the 8 percent metric is met.

Boards of Supervisors Chairman Luis Plancarte called for more of the public to be tested in order to bring the percentage down.

One metric the county has met is having the ability to test 273 patients per day. Angulo said the county has the capacity to do more than 400 tests daily.

She said they are testing quite a bit, though the results recently have been 50 percent positive and 50 percent negative.

“We are encouraging people to stay at home because we are trying to meet the metrics,” she said, adding that if these steps are not taken, the county’s status may have to be downgraded if there is a spike in positive cases.

“Within the full report there is a containment plan and metrics we have in place,” she said.

Supervisor Ryan Kelley said businesses have been reaching out and telling him the struggles they are facing. He encouraged people to get tested.

“I see the devastation of having so many people being cloistered for so long,” Kelley said.

Munday said another testing lane has been added at the county fairgrounds, so now OptumServe can test 264 people a day, which is twice as many as it had been doing.

“We have more work to do, and we want to keep people safe,” he said.

Angulo remained optimistic — to a point.

“It’s going to take all of us to meet the metrics here,” she said. “We all need to be part of the solution. It’s not an impossible metric to be met.”

She urged people to remain at home for the next two weeks to two months as the county tries to reach this last metric.

Kelley said people at the beginning were staying home and off the road, but now they are driving more.

Munday agreed, saying the county’s proximity to Arizona to the east, San Diego to the west, Riverside to the north and Mexico to the south have made things tricky with residents driving from county to county.

“We have an interesting set of borders that moves back and forth,” he said.