Contra Costa County continues to trend in the right direction when it comes to COVID-19, county health services director Anna Roth told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
“Our case rates have continued to go down this last month,” Roth said. “We’re now at 7.9 cases per 100,000 (residents); that’s compared to 13.2 cases per 100,000 a month ago, so that’s a 40 percent decrease.”
The highest case rates in the county are now among 5-to-12-year-olds and 30-to-39-year-olds, Roth said.
“Testing has gone down a little bit, but we are still at 5,500 new tests per day; that’s compared to about 6,700 per day a month ago,” Roth said.
Cases in county detention facilities have dwindled to zero and countywide hospitalizations are down as well.
“We are at 59 patients hospitalized currently, compared to 83 a month ago,” Roth said. “We have 18 people in critical care, and that’s compared to 37 a month ago.
The county is now administering about 3,800 vaccinations per day, 775 of which are first doses.
Some mask restrictions have eased this week in Contra Costa, in settings not open to the general public like gyms and offices. No more than 100 people can gather without masks, and the owner of the private facility must verify that everyone going maskless is fully vaccinated.
For restaurants and other indoor public venues, the county must enter the yellow tier of infection rate as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have fewer than 95 COVID-19 hospitalizations countywide (Contra Costa has 59) and either have a countywide vaccination rate of at least 80 percent (Contra Costa is at about 73 percent) or be eight weeks past the date the FDA approves vaccines for children ages 5 to 11.
“We need 84,000 more people vaccinated to reach the overall 80 percent,” Roth sad. “We have 92,000 kids in our county who are within the ages of 5 to 11, so we really want to see those kids come in for vaccinations when those are approved, which we anticipate they will later this week.”
Deputy health officer Dr. Sofe Mekuria told the board the county has requested 20,000 doses of Pfizer’s version of the children’s vaccine, which is about one-third the dose of the adult version.