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COVID Surge Could Stretch into 2022
W
hile Humboldt County’s latest — and most deadly — COIVD-19 surge appears to be on the downward slope, the descent is likely to be a slow one that could extend “well into next year,” with occasional mini-surges, according to county Health Officer Ian Hoffman. “Today’s COVID-19 case rates have dropped to the lowest rate they’ve been in the past two months. However, case rates remain very high, higher than they were during the peak of the previous surges in winter and spring of this past year,” he said in a written report to the board of supervisors. If the state’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy” were still being used, Humboldt would fall into the highest risk level — the purple tier — and under the U.S. Centers for Disease Control data tracker, the county continues to be in the “Red, High Transmission” tier, his report states. “The worst is not over yet and we need to remain vigilant,” Hoffman said at a Sept. 29 news conference. In the latest round of genomic sequencing, the Delta variant accounted for 98 percent of Humboldt County cases, Hoffman said. It is, he said, “the vastly, predominantly overwhelming variant that is out there now and it has taken over them all.”
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A state database shows 17 people hospitalized with COVID-19 locally as of Oct. 5, with five under intensive care. The local hospital census peaked Sept. 3 with 42 COVID-19 patients. Hoffman and other county health officials continue to emphasize the importance of vaccination, with Public Health Director Sofia Pereira saying, “That continues to be our best shot to get through this pandemic together.” With each successive surge of COVID cases, younger and younger nonvaccinated people are being hospitalized — including many in their 20s and 30s — with some dying, including residents in their 40s and 50s, Hoffman said. That is not the case with the fully vaccinated, with hospitalizations and deaths due to the virus in that group being tied to older age and underlying health conditions, Hoffman said at the news conference. “We will likely continue to see more hospitalizations and deaths over the coming weeks, as those are the most lagging indicators for COVID-19 during a surge in cases,” the health officer wrote in his report for the supervisors. “Based on current COVID-19 national modeling, we could see cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue throughout the remainder of 2021, and into the spring of 2022.” Hoffman said vaccination rates have
Photo by Kris Nagel
Hundreds of Humboldt County residents descended on the courthouse lawn Oct. 2 in solidarity with marches and demonstrations taking place in all 50 states to rally for reproductive rights. See a slideshow of photos from the rally at www.northcoastjournal. com. POSTED 10.03.21 shown a “slow but steady rise” in recent weeks with an about 1 percent increase each week in the number of county residents who are fully vaccinated. He emphasized that those who are in priority groups for the Pfizer booster — including residents 65 and older, those who live in high-risk, long-term care facilities, those with certain underlying medical conditions or who are at increased risk of exposure at work — should get their shot six months after their second dose, if they
received Pfizer as their original vaccine. So far this school year, the county has found only one COVID-19 outbreak associated with a classroom. Hoffman and Pereira said Public Health is working with districts and campuses to keep schools safe and they are not seeing widespread transmission in classrooms. Read more at www.northcoastjournal. com. — Kimberly Wear POSTED 10.04.21 Read the full story online.
Tahoe Bound: Local travel options are poised to expand next month after ExpressJet announced it will launch nonstop flights from Humboldt County to the Reno-Tahoe airport. The flights are slated to operate Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, adding to a flurry of recent additions that includes flights to Denver, Colorado, and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Another Walkout: For the third consecutive day, hundreds of students walked off a local high school campus on Sept. 29 to stand in solidarity with survivors of sexual assault and protest what they feel are inadequate administrative and societal responses. The Sept. 29 walkout saw several hundred students leave Arcata High School to rally downtown.
Mulling Mandates, Oversight: As the Journal went to press Oct. 5, the Eureka City Council was slated to decide whether to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for all city employees and discuss how to implement more robust oversight of the Eureka Police Department. Check www.northcoastjournal.com for a full report on the Oct. 5 meeting.
POSTED 09.29.21
POSTED 09.30.21
POSTED 10.04.21
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Digitally Speaking
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Rally for Reproductive Rights
The number of new COVID-19 cases confirmed in Humboldt County through the first five days in October, during which the county had a test-positivity rate of 16.2 percent and reported eight new hospitalizations. POSTED 10.05.21
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They Said It “They know this operator is running the facility and they’re not doing anything about it. In a sense, the state could be codefendants in this case.”
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Comment of the Week “Wait… they want to require vaccinations in school? Get out!”
— California Advocates for Nursing Home reform Tony Chicotel on how a lack of state oversight enabled conditions in a Redding skilled nursing facility that led to a deadly COVID-19 outbreak and a lawsuit against its owner Schlomo Rechnitz, who also owns four Humboldt County facilities.
— Jason Crews responding to an uproar on the Journal Facebook page on a story about the state of California announcing it will require COVID-19 vaccines for eligible students beginning in 2022, as it already does for Polio, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Hepatitis B and Chickenpox.
POSTED 10.04.21
POSTED 10.01.21
northcoastjournal.com • Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021 • NORTH COAST JOURNAL
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