Sonoma County added 79 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours and currently there’s an overall total of 70 deaths, five of which occurred in the last 24 hours among the county’s older and more vulnerable population in skilled nursing and residential elder care facilities according to an update from Sonoma County Health Officer, Dr. Sundari Mase.
In a wildfire and COVID-19 situational update Friday afternoon, Mase discussed the latest case numbers for the county. According to the most recent update, the county is at 4,863 cases of COVID-19. 2,197 are active and 2,596 are recovered.
Since the county is also seeing a case rate above 200 per 100,000 (at its most recent update, the case rate was 266 per 100,000 people) and an increase in hospitalizations and low ICU bed availability, the county will remain on the state health department’s coronavirus watchlist. The case rate means that county schools aren’t currently eligible to apply for waivers that would allow for partial in-person learning.
The case positivity rate is the highest it’s been at 7.8%. Mase said some of this may be due to the state data glitch and a delay in reporting, however, she said the county is still having a lot of cases.
“We are working really hard to ensure that we keep our COVID-19 mitigation measures are in place even with this disaster. With evacuations and shelters, we still need to ensure that we are wearing our facial coverings, that we are abiding by a six-foot social distance whenever possible and that we’re following all of the general hygiene measures,” Mase said.
Mase said the evacuations due to the Walbridge Fire have the potential to negatively affect the COVID-19 numbers, which is why it’s important to follow COVID mitigation measures even when evacuating or when staying at a shelter or a friend or family’s house.
According to the Sonoma County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Director Chris Godley, COVID health and safety measures have been implemented at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds temporary evacuation point (TEP) and at the congregate shelter located at the Grace Pavilion of the fairgrounds.
Dr. Kismet Baldwin of the Sonoma County Health Department said county health has been working with the EOC and community partners to set up a screening process at the TEP and at the shelter as well as temperature checks and the use of facial coverings and social distancing.
“I think we’ve developed a very solid screening flow that allows the screeners at the TEP to decide where somebody should be directed based on screening symptom questions, asking about their lab status, whether or not they are diagnosed with COVID or if they have a documented fever at the time of the rescreening,” Baldwin said.
In terms of COVID alternate care sites, the site that was located in the Healdsburg area was preemptively moved and relocated to the Petaluma fairgrounds and is up and running.
Fire crews are also utilizing stringent COVID safety measures at incident centers and base camps. CalFire Chief Sean Kavanaugh said folks are wearing masks all of the time and keeping six feet of social distance. They also have a COVID tent sent up at all of the base camps for anyone who may feel they have any of the symptoms or sickness.
“We take daily monitoring in every trailer or tent that we’re in, we’re marking temperatures, and as you come into the base camp you can’t even enter the base camp without a temperature and daily check taken,” Kavanaugh said. “It is a whole other part of the overall operation that we have and we’ve been working for months defining that and we’ve also changed our feeding process. You have to watch your hands first, you have to sanitize, we don’t have open feeding such as a salad bar and food is handed to you in a box and we’re allowing only three people to a six-foot table.”
Mase said that with the poor air quality of 156 AQI (air quality index) caused by fire smoke, folks should limit outdoor activity and keep windows and doors closed if possible.
