Shasta County has been living purple, and must abide by purple tier restrictions starting this Friday as cases continue to rise substantially. 23 new cases make a total of 2,288. another fatality, a man in his 80’s, brings the COVID death toll to 33. There are 125 active cases. 13 people are hospitalized, with 4 in intensive care. 367 people are quarantined due to possible exposure.
Tehama County Public Health says anyone who visited the Round Up Bar in Red Bluff on the 16th through the 18th of October should get tested. Tehama County has a total 971 cases and 15 deaths. Trinity County had 12 new cases in the last 6 days for a total of 40. Butte County has had 3,207 cases and 54 deaths. Glenn County has had 710 cases and 3 deaths. There have been 272 cases in Siskiyou County and 586 in Humboldt County with 9 deaths. Modoc County is up to 58 cases. Lassen County has had one death among their 135 cases in the community and 642 in prison.
Public health says the state will move Shasta County into the purple tier on Friday, forcing the highest level of restrictions. The adjusted case rate has gone from 7.5 to 10.4 daily cases per 100,000 residents. Anything about 7 is in the purple tier. The positivity rate also increased from 3.3% to 4.1%. The data covers the week of October 18th to the 24th. State agencies will likely take a more aggressive enforcement role now that the county has entered a more severe level of restrictions. These are the purple tier rules:
— Retail stores and shopping centers can only allow 25% capacity.
— Bars and breweries that don’t serve meals must close.
— No indoor service at all is allowed for restaurants, churches, museums, movie theaters, gyms, fitness centers, cardrooms, bowling alleys and other family entertainment centers. They can only be outdoors.
— Some indoor services are allowed, including hair and nail salons, tattooing, piercing and electrolysis.
Kindergarten through 12th grade schools do not need to close.
The county must remain in the purple tier for at least 3 weeks and must show red tier numbers for two consecutive weeks before restrictions will ease.
Widespread testing is a vital component in getting the county out of the purple tier. There have been 66,057 negative tests in Shasta County. There are several free options to get tested, which can be found by going to shastaready.org and clicking on “get tested”.