Contra Costa County will likely remain in the state’s orange tier of COVID-19 restrictions until June 15, when California will lift restrictions statewide, health officials told the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
Adjusted overall case rates are about twice as high as what’s necessary to get into the least-restrictive yellow tier of the state’s reopening criteria. County health officer Dr. Chris Farnitano said hospitalizations have gone up recently among two notable groups.
“It’s almost exclusively among unvaccinated, or partially-vaccinated, persons,” Farnitano said. “In the final weeks of April, we were running about 20 to 30 patients hospitalized each day, on average, in our local hospitals. In the last two weeks it’s climbed over 30 into the mid-30s.”
Farnitano said the county is still averaging one death per day in hospitals among the unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.
“This is just a really clear reminder of how important it is to get vaccinated and protect yourself,” he said.
Farnitano also said every “variant of concern” has appeared in Contra Costa, including the new variant from India. The U.K. strain, which spreads easier and causes more severe illness, is rapidly becoming the most common strain in California.
But he said the good news is all of the vaccines are effective in fighting other variants.
“The bad news is that, if you’re not vaccinated, COVID is becoming more dangerous and more deadly as time goes on,” Farnitano said. “And children are still at risk.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration just approved the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 12 to 15. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is meeting this week to formally sign off on recommendations.
Farnitano said the county could open vaccines to that age group at all county sites by Thursday or Friday.
Contra Costa County will also open 18 new school-based clinics, with details to be announced soon. The first clinic will open by May 18 and be available to the entire community at local middle and high school sites for eight weeks.
All sites in the county are now taking walk-ins, though people can still make appointments at CCHealth.org or by calling the vaccination help center at (833) 829-2626.
30 comments
You are a Piece of TRASH.
It’s over and it has been. Open EVERYTHING up and stop politicizing everything.
Oppressors gonna oppress.
Look at what is happening in Ontario Canada. The police have standing orders to check everybody and their reason to be out of their house. They can stop every person, every car and ask for ID. They have the ability to jail them too. Also, look at the pastor who drove the Ontario Health Official and the police out of his church 2 times, calling them Nazi’s and Gestapo. He was stopped and arrested. Shame on them all including CA!
Dr. Chris Farnitano said hospitalizations have gone up recently among two notable groups.“It’s almost exclusively among unvaccinated, or partially-vaccinated, persons,”
Folks, our Health Department is creating a caste system: Fully vaccinated, partial or not vaccinated…
It’s over huh? How many times have people said it’s a fluke, it’s not real, it’s over and we open up fully but things take a turn for the worse? You want everything shut down again? Yes things have gotten a lot better but takes 1 dumb move to completely end it all.
chicken little speaks
“ahhh, i might get sick”, yes you will at some point in life. get the shot if you want and put on your big boy paints, or just don’t leave the house. you seem like you are afraid of your own shadow.
You can be sure they’re actively working on post-June 15th restrictions to address the public health crisis of racism.
Makes you wonder who really won the Cold War.
But .. but .. I thought Newscum said we all open up by June 15th … so we are going to stay on lockdown (what a joke!) until our Health Department convenes their own special task force to decide what is safe … they do not trust the state, or are they just following Newscum’s example not following the Feds …
And our health director (by title only) Faranloser is saying children are still at risk. Hopefully the MDEA does not hear him, they will shut the schools down faster than you can type ‘MDEA’.
Is he going to to try and force all children to take a drug that is only EUA approved? Really … seems a bit wrong to push a somewhat still experimental drug on children for a virus that they have a high percentage of surviving.
Can we recall this Faranloser as well?
Sadly not, but we can recall the board of supervisors who appointed him and others
I’m wondering if you actually read the article? Nowhere does it say the county isn’t opening on June 15, or that the County is setting up it’s own special task force.
So D’Lo’
Let’s see, orange tier till June 15 is in the title. Our little health dictator and his greats all governor will not let us move from orange to fully open in one shot …. so that infers that we will not be following the state tiers of they will change the goal posts again. Are you still following me?
Own special task force, no the article does not mention that. I was wondering if our dictator will do what our greasy scum of a governor did with his little special team to review what the FDA did.
“Two more weeks.”
Does anyone know if there is an “outpatient” protocol established? I have a friend in Texas and another in Nebraska who got Covid and within 2 days were able to get Treatment from their doctors office. Both recovered within 72 hours. They were given anti-viral cocktails of some kind. I may have missed it but did our CCC health officials speak about helping sick people before they are sick enough to be hospitalized?
The FDA has issued Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for two monoclonal antibody combinations for use in outpatient treatment of mild to moderate Covid-19 in patients at high risk of severe illness or hospitalization as defined in the EUA’s.
County health officials have nothing to do with whether or not you get these drugs. That’s up to your doctor.
“The bad news is that, if you’re not vaccinated, COVID is becoming more dangerous and more deadly as time goes on,” Farnitano said. “And children are still at risk.”
No doc. The bad news is that our elected leaders are too weak to can your ass. You have no credibility. It sounds like you are just making crap up now.
It is time to open up 100%. To all my Democrat neighbors. Please stop voting for these people, they are destroying our state. Can’t you see that?
Isn’t it racist to use the virus’ geographical birth place as the name of the virus. India variant. U.K. strain. I thought we couldn’t call it the China Virus? Isn’t the good doctor worried about the white supremacists going after the Indians, and the Brits?
“Children are still at risk.”
Really? 600,000 Covid deaths, and less than 300 under 18 years old. There’s nothing urgent about this for kids – it’s just another respiratory virus, and they are not even the main vectors (as they are for flu).
hey pfizer has a lot of product, and they want more money, so they want to expierment on your kids. dont worry its from israel! you can always trust those people! look how well they treat the palestinian kids!
If CA is at 1.1 percent positivity rate, why are we still even in Tiers?
On April 30, our county had 20 covid-19 patients in the hospital. As of yesterday, the number of covid-19 patients was 40. I think it’s highly likely that none of these patients had been fully vaccinated.
Wait what…. if the masks worked then why the lockdowns
If the vaccines work then why wear masks
If the vaccines work then why the lockdowns
“Live and let die”
Can we cut out this BS of “iF mAsKs wOrKeD” hypotheticals. They do work – not perfectly, which is why other safety measures have been in place this entire time. Those safety measures (6ft distance, capacity limits) are also not 100% effective. Hell, even the vaccines are not 100% effective, even though they are close. So we use multiple measures at a time for redundancy, which tremendously decreases transmission risk relative to just masking or just distancing etc. This is such a simple concept to grasp that you are either extremely dim or willfully ignorant at this point of the pandemic.
Ya know what, this is the final dumb ass move, Im outta here
✌️
The fear mongering continues. Newscum approved ab5 giving unelected officials , like Farnitano, the power to do what they want( at Newscums orders of course) . Commieformia!
And San Francisco, the germ and filth Capital of Northern California has moved to the yellow tier?
They are clearly manufacturing statistics.
“Just 14 more years to flatten the curve.”
@Pete~No kidding…it’s like a never-ending nightmare..
I thought Newsom wasn’t going to open the state again until we found a cure for death?!
“The bad news is that, if you’re not vaccinated, COVID is becoming more dangerous and more deadly as time goes on,” Farnitano said. “And children are still at risk.”
THIS IS A FLAT OUT LIE. Why is any official allowed to make crap like this up? Where is the accountability? Cant anything be done about this?
Yep, we really are dealing with Dr. Lexus & Brawndo.
I didn’t expect it to happen this fast though.
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