Yuba-sutter making progress toward less restrictive tier

Bi-county Public Health Officer Dr. Phuong Luu said local counties have made progress in recent weeks toward the goal of being removed from the state’s most restrictive tier, though fluctuating daily case counts need to balance out before that’s achievable.

In order to move into the next less restrictive tier, each county must meet both the case count metric of less than seven new daily cases per 100,000 residents and have a test positivity rate of less than 8 percent.

Sutter County is the closer of the two, with a test positivity of 7 percent and an average case count of 10.7 new cases per 100,000 people – that’s down from 14.3 new cases at the first tier designation, Luu said. Yuba County’s test positivity is at 10.6 percent with 10.4 new cases per 100,000 people – down from 14.4.

“Look at El Dorado County, which has a greater population than YubaSutter combined, and is currently in the red tier and will likely drop down to the orange tier soon,” Luu said.

“It can be done. We just all have to hang in there and continue practicing those behaviors we know will limit transmission of those potentially infected droplets from our mouth and nose.”

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases increased by 14 on Thursday, bringing the area’s total to 2,743 cases.

Twenty-three people were hospitalized as of Thursday evening, while 44 residents recovered from the virus. Seventeen local residents have died due to the virus to date.