5 more die from COVID-19 Saturday through Tuesday
Five additional Tuolumne County residents died from COVID-19 Saturday through Tuesday, bringing the total number killed by the virus in the past two weeks to 14.
One death was reported sometime between Saturday and Monday, followed by four more Tuesday afternoon. Those brought the county’s total since the pandemic began to 87, up from 73 on Aug. 10.
“The Public Health team offers its condolences to their family and friends,” the county Public Health Department said in an update Tuesday afternoon announcing the four additional deaths.
The virus’s rapid spread throughout the community also showed no signs of slowing down as Tuesday’s daily case rate of 64.5 was the highest it has been at any point of the pandemic.
There were also 274 active cases and 20 people in the county who were hospitalized for the virus as of Tuesday afternoon, the county Public Health Department reported.
An unvaccinated man in his 60s was identified as the per
son who died sometime between Saturday and Monday.
Three of the four deaths reported on Tuesday were said to be unvaccinated and identified as a woman in her 80s, a woman in her 60s and a man in his 40s, while a vaccinated woman in her 90s was the fourth.
The woman in her 90s was the second fully vaccinated person in the
county to have died from the virus, with the first being a man in his 80s who also suffered from underlying health conditions.
People who are unvaccinated continue to be nearly all of the county’s new cases, hospitalizations and deaths, with the available vaccines proving to be highly effective at preventing severe illness.
Two of the four deaths reported Tuesday were said to have come from a local care facility, the name of which was not shared by the department.
“Public Health epidemiology and infection prevention staff are coordinating with facilities and organizations to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in high-risk settings,” the department said Tuesday afternoon.
There were a combined total of 165 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the county from Saturday through Tuesday, three of which were identified as inmates at Sierra Conservation Center state prison outside of Jamestown.
Out of the other 163 cases among residents in the community, 20 were vaccinated people.
The demographics of the cases were 10 girls and eight boys under the age of 12, nine girls and six boys between 12 and 17, 16 women and 13 men between 18 and 29, 13 women and 14 men in their 30s, 13 women and 13 men in their 40s, 11 women and six men in their 50s, 12 women and eight men in their 60s, four women and one man in theirs 70s, two women and two men in their 80s and one women in her 90s.
A low vaccination rate and lack of other restrictions or preventative measures, such as a mask mandate and ban on large gatherings, has allowed the highly contagious delta variant of the virus to spread through the county like wildfire in the past couple of months.
About 53% of the county’s eligible age population — 12 and older — was fully vaccinated as of Tuesday, compared with 64.5% statewide and 60.4% nationwide.
Health care workers in the county have been speaking out on social media and other platforms in recent days to encourage more people to get vaccinated and dispel misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines.
The county Public Health Department and Adventist Health Sonora, the county’s only hospital, released a joint statement on Monday in hopes of encouraging more vaccinations and helping people better understand the dire impact that the current surge is having on the local health care system.
See the COVID-19 tracker on Page A2 for more information about ways to get vaccinated. Please note, the data does not reflect the numbers of new deaths and cases that were released Tuesday afternoon.