California’s top health official says Coronavirus cases are expected to continue to climb in the state and everyday activities now carry a much greater risk of infection. Residents are urged to stay home whenever possible. Upwards of 22,000 California residents are testing positive each day, with about 12% inevitably showing up at hospitals in two to three weeks.
COVID-19 has claimed another Shasta County resident, a man in his 70’s, bringing the death toll to 54. An additional 99 cases were reported from Sunday and 132 from Monday for a total so far of 6,055. An estimated 626 Shasta County residents have the virus right now, with 46 of them in the hospital and 13 in the ICU. Thousands of people are under quarantine orders due to possible exposure. The adjusted case rate has increased from 39.8 to 41.6 daily cases per 100,000 residents.
Shasta County has not reached the threshold of the regional stay home order. Intensive care unit availability needs to drop below 15% for the order to take effect. Public health says according to the latest count the Northern Region, which includes Shasta County, has 25% of ICU beds available.
Shasta County remains in the purple tier, restricting retail stores to 25% capacity, closing bars that don’t serve meals and allowing outdoor-only service for restaurants, churches, museums, entertainment centers and gyms.
Residents of Butte County will be under a stay-at-home order starting on Friday after a decrease in the number of available ICU beds. Butte County is part of the Greater Sacramento Region, and available ICU beds in that region have dropped below the 15% threshold for the stay-at-home order. The restrictions go into effect at 11:59PM on Thursday and will be in effect for 3 weeks.
Tehama County has had 2,148 cases and 30 deaths.
Trinity County has had their first fatality among 217 cases.
There have been 828 in Siskiyou County with 7 deaths.
4,706 cases have been reported in Butte County with 62 deaths.
Glenn County has had 1,101 cases and 11 deaths.
Humboldt County has had 1,137 cases and 9 deaths.
Lassen County has had 4 deaths among their 717 cases in the community and one death among the 1,797 cases in prison.
Modoc County has reached 200 cases.
Anyone who tests positive but has no symptoms should isolate themselves until 10 days after being tested. Those with symptoms need to be fever-free for at least 24 hours before leaving isolation.
Widespread testing is a vital component in slowing the spread. Shasta County has reported 90,710 negative tests. State testing is now being done at HHSA Offices in Shasta Lake, Anderson, South Redding, Enterprise and Shasta College. Appointments for free testing at any of these sites can be made at lhi.care/covidtesting or visit shastaready.org.
There’s a lot of information at shastaready.org, the Facebook Coronavirus Information Center and cdc.gov.