Tuolumne County adds 5 COVID deaths on Thursday

The deadly surge of COVID-19 that Tuolumne County has been weathering since mid-july claimed five more victims whose deaths were announced on Thursday.

Four of the people who died were unvaccinated, including a woman in her 60s, a woman in her 70s, a man in his 60s, and a man in his 70s. The one vaccinated person who died was identified by the county Public Health Department as a man in his 70s.

There were also 13 people hospitalized for COVID-19 in the county as of Thursday, with 11 of them being people who were unvaccinated.

No other information was released Thursday about when or where the five most recent deaths occurred, but county Public Health Director Michelle Jachetta said on Friday that one was in September and others

were in October and over the past week.

The county Public Health Department has said in the past that it can sometimes take weeks to months before it receives confirmation of a local death from COVID-19, depending on where the person died, how long the investigation took, and other factors.

A total of six vaccinated people in the county have now died from the virus out of 129 total COVID-19 deaths since the county’s first loss during the pandemic was reported in late July 2020.

Four others who died of COVID-19 while vaccinated were in their 80s or older, while another was a woman in her 30s.

None of the five deaths reported Thursday were associated with a “congregate care setting,” defined as places where people reside, meet or gather in close proximity either for a limited or extended period of time, the county Public Health Department noted.

Examples of congregate care settings can include workplaces, schools, nursing homes, long-term care facilities, homeless shelters, jails and prisons.

County public health officials revealed during an update to the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that outbreaks at two undisclosed local long-term care facilities had resulted in nine deaths, with 35 cases among residents and seven among staff between both.

The officials said on Tuesday that no new cases had been reported at either facility among residents or staff between Oct. 24 and Monday.

There were also 10 new cases throughout the whole county announced on Thursday, which included eight people who were unvaccinated. They were identified as a girl and a boy younger than 11, two women in their 30s, two women and two men in their 40s, one woman in her 50s, and one woman in her 60s.

It was the county’s lowest number of cases for a single day in recent weeks and brought the two-week average case rate down to 47.8 per 100,000 residents after hovering in the low 50s since Oct. 29.

Since the pandemic began, the county has confirmed 5,818 cases among local residents and 1,620 among inmates at Sierra Conservation Center in Jamestown.

Dr. Eric Sergienko, the county health officer, said on Friday that local cases still appeared to be just “leveling off” as opposed to actually declining.

“We’re still in the high range of transmission,” he said. “More than enough for the purple tier.”

The purple tier was the most restrictive and meant the highest case rate of the four color-coded tiers that the state formerly used to gauge the risk of COVID-19 infection in counties.

Sergienko said the best way people can reduce transmission and help bring an end to the pandemic is through following the measures that have proven to be effective: wearing a mask, handwashing, social distancing, staying home when sick, and getting vaccinated.

“We want people to go back to normal, but the way to do that is through adhering to the guidelines we know work best to reduce transmission,” he said. “We won’t get back to normal until we reduce transmission.”

There will be a COVID vaccination clinic for children ages 5 to 11 hosted by the county Public Health Department on Wednesday, after federal regulators earlier this week approved an emergency use authorization for kids that young to receive a smaller-dose Pfizer shot.

Sergienko said the amount of antigen in each shot is about one-third of the amount given to adults and requires two doses spaced at least 21 days apart for full effectiveness.

Parents can make appointments for their child at www.myturn.ca.gov, which is where all future clinics for everyone 5 or older will be scheduled.

Jachetta said they received their first shipment of pediatric shots early in the week and have received “quite a few calls” in recent days from parents asking when they could schedule their kids to get vaccinated.

The county Public Health Department also will offer the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to anyone 18 or older in the Manzanita building at the Mother Lode Fairgrounds in Sonora from 9 a.m. to noon and 1:15 to 4 p.m. on Nov. 13, with appointments also available through www.myturn.ca.gov.

There were 15 new cases and no additional deaths reported on Thursday in Calaveras County, which doesn’t provide the vaccination status of new cases. The county also had two people hospitalized, with a total of 3,941 confirmed cases and 83 deaths since the pandemic began.