San Joaquin County Public Health officials reported Tuesday a rise in COVID-19 cases throughout the county, leaving intensive care units above capacity.
In a Board of Supervisors meeting, county Public Health Officer Maggie Park said lately there are more than 350 people testing positive for COVID-19 in a day and ICUs are at 118 percent of their capacity.
“We are getting about 350, almost 400 cases a day on some days of positive reports … of those maybe 80 to 100 are ages zero to 17,” Park said.
In two weeks, the county’s case rate has gone from 25.6 to 34.8 per 100,000 people.
Park said the current testing positivity rate is 8.5 percent countywide, 251 people are hospitalized, and 65 people are in the ICUs.
Out of the 65 ICU patients, approximately 50 of them are on breathing ventilators, Park said.
San Joaquin County has 52 percent of residents fully vaccinated, and 13.4 percent partially vaccinated. The fully vaccinated number is well below the current statewide rate of 65.5 percent.
Additionally, Park presented to the board the latest quarantine guidance recommendations from the California Department of Public Health.
CDPH officials said unvaccinated people can now end their quarantine after 10 days from the date they were exposed to COVID-19 without being tested and vaccinated asymptomatic people exposed to the virus don’t need to quarantine if they are fully vaccinated.
However, the CDPH encourages vaccinated and unvaccinated people to continue self-monitoring for symptoms and to get tested if any symptoms develop.