BACK TO RED TIER
County hopes to see vaccine clinics hit 1,000 doses per day
After a month of being back in the purple tier, Humboldt County shifted back to the less restrictive red tier.
During the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, Public Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman was overwhelmingly positive and focused on the likely shift to the red tier, which was not announced by the state until noon.
“Case rates have been hovering around seven per 100,000 and the test positivity rate has been in the 3% to 4 % range, which should land us solidly in the red tier for another week given that we’re also meeting the equity metric,” Hoffman said. “We feel this is a much better position than we were in back in January when we moved to the red tier. At that time, we really barely made it into the red tier by 0.1% on the test positivity rate. This time, the numbers look much more solid the case rates are much, much lower and the test positivity range is much more solidly in the red tier.”
The shift back into the red tier means indoor dining will open to 25% capacity, indoor gyms can open to 10% capacity, movie theaters can open to 25% capacity, indoor church and religious services will remain at 25% capacity and indoor retail can move up to 50% capacity. Bars will remain closed and live music and sports are not allowed in the red tier.
“I would still recommend that people continue to do as much outdoors as possible and still try to avoid indoor gathering to reduce the risk of the spread of COVID and to hopefully keep us gaining momentum on lower case rates in the coming weeks and months,” Hoffman added.
While hospitalizations in Humboldt County remain high, it does not appear local hospitals are being strained.
“(The county is) still seeing the tail end of the surge, which can often take four to six weeks to play out with hospitalizations,” Hoffman said. “We have to remember that those worse symptoms do come in weeks or even months after the infection itself. It doesn’t appear that we’re approaching anything like a crisis in our hospital capacity at this point, so we’ll continue to watch the hospital beds and ICU beds closely for signs of any strain.”
In the last month, testing for COVID-19 has dropped off in Humboldt County and across the state. In an effort to reduce the spread of variants and prevent the county from moving back into the purple tier, Hoffman underscored the need to continue regular testing.
“It is especially important to remember that as we see variants of concern across California, while we haven’t seen any here locally, we do want to continue to test so that if we did have any spread of a variant of concern, we could pick that up quickly here in Humboldt County,” Hoffman said.
An estimated 14% of Humboldt County’s residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine, including 60% of residents 75 years and older. Hoffman said vaccine distribution across the county is fairly uniform with 10% to 15% of residents receiving the vaccine in zip codes across the county. However, he noted the need to do more outreach to the county’s Latino communities as their vaccination rates are disproportionately lower than other groups.
Due to fierce winter weather across the country last week, vaccine distribution was delayed and vaccine clinics were subsequently postponed. Hoffman said the clinics have received their shipments and will be contacting patients who were previously scheduled.
“Almost all of those were second doses. We are still in a large wave of second doses, which is limiting our ability to give first doses currently,” he said.
As Humboldt County moves people 75 years and older along with educators in Phase 1B, Hoffman said the county is planning to begin vaccinating people 65 years and older, higher education and food and agriculture employees in March.
“We also had information coming down from the state last week about opening up vaccinations for 16 to 64-year-olds with certain medical conditions,” Hoffman added. “So, we’re working with our local medical providers right now on the determinant system to identify those individuals and get them in for appointments when that becomes available in mid-March.”
At this time, Hoffman said the county is not going to pursue a drive-thru clinic and is going to stick with the current model.
“Our planning and logistics team determined the testing sites we’ve been using where we have existing MOUs, that the facilities are set up quite nicely and are actually doing a really good job,” Hoffman said. “We feel those (sites) can actually have just as much throughput as a drivethru model, potentially upwards of 1,000 or 1,200 people in a day.”
After Hoffman’s presentation, 1st District Supervisor Rex Bohn asked what Humboldt County Public Health’s recommendation is to schools planning to return to in-person learning in the coming weeks.
“Moving into the red tier is definitely going to make (returning) more widely available for schools that have not been open to this point,” Hoffman said. “The new school guidance is very robust and very safe. Testing recommendations are there to enhance even more the security of both the kids and the educators and the support staff in those schools, so we fully support reopening.”
Both Bohn and 3rd District Supervisor Mike Wilson asked for clarification on communications between Humboldt County Public Health and local hospitals regarding vaccine distribution. Wilson said some of his constituents did not hear back from the county when they inquired about scheduling a vaccine and had better luck getting in touch with their primary care provider directly.
“I think we are seeing a slowdown in first doses in the last almost two weeks now. So, that’s part of the reason that folks are feeling the wait is a little longer. We hope that’s going to open up in the coming weeks,” Hoffman said.
Assuming Humboldt County would shift to the red tier, 4th District Supervisor Virginia Bass asked if it would be possible to give restaurants a few days notice before reopening to limited indoor dining. Hoffman noted Public Health had mentioned the likelihood of shifting into the red tier last week and loosened restrictions would go into effect after midnight.
“This is a very different move than it was back in the first two weeks in January. This feels like the move is likely to stick and that the trends are all headed in the right direction, so I feel much more confident about businesses reopening now than they did in January,” Hoffman said.
More information on Humboldt County’s response to COVID-19 can be found at humboldtgov.org/2018/HumboldtHealth-Alert.