Over the course of Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, a total of 573 new Coronavirus cases were recorded in Shasta County. Public health is estimating 760 currently active cases of the virus, but they say the actual number of infected people in the community is undoubtedly higher. Confirmed cases so far now total 4,470. 43 people have died. There are 43 patients currently hospitalized with 6 in intensive care. Public health still cannot provide the number of people under quarantine orders.
Tehama County has had 1,568 cases and two more deaths have been reported for a total of 25. Trinity County has had 136 cases. Siskiyou County has had 582 cases and 2 deaths. Butte County has had 3,812 cases and 59 deaths. Glenn County has had 848 cases and 7 deaths. 730 cases are reported in Humboldt County with 9 deaths. Lassen County has had two deaths among their 375 cases in the community and one death among the 1,354 cases in prison. Modoc County has reached 122 cases.
Widespread testing is a vital component in eventually getting Shasta County out of the purple tier. There have been 80,668 negative tests. A new state testing site has been set up at the Boggs Building on Breslauer Way. Also, a traveling testing team will alternate between Shasta Lake, Anderson and Enterprise. Appointments for any of these sites can be made at lhi.care/covidtesting or visit shastaready.org.
The case rate limit for the purple tier is 7 per 100,000 residents. The latest rate recorded for Shasta County is 51.8. The high per capita testing volume allows it to be adjusted to 33.8, still almost five times the limit. Shasta County took almost 7 months to reach 1,000 cases. The second thousand was reached in 28 days, the third thousand in 16 days, and the fourth thousand cases happened in just one week.
Travel advisories and overnight curfews are not designed to be enforced by authorities, but are intended to be self-imposed by people who are concerned about spreading the virus to more vulnerable members of the population. When considering large gatherings that include elderly family members, consider that people over age 65 represent 10% of COVID cases, but 75% of the deaths.
California officials have approved stricter new safety regulations requiring employers to implement safety measures. Cal/OSHA now requires businesses to educate employees on ways to prevent infection, provide free personal protective equipment and offer free COVID-19 testing to all employees if three or more employees are infected with the Coronavirus within a 14-day period.
The U.S. has seen more than 12.4 Million confirmed Coronavirus infections, and over 258,000 people have died. The country is now averaging over 1,300 COVID-19 deaths per day. The number of people in the hospital with the virus hit another all-time high at more than 80,000.