By Roger Straw, Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Solano County reported 96 new COVID infections since last Friday.  Benicia’s 7-day case count remains in SUBSTANTIAL transmission rate, but only 1 case above MODERATE.  Solano County continues in HIGH transmission rate, but is nearing SUBSTANTIAL.

Solano Public Health COVID dashboard, Wednesday, March 2, 2022:

NOTE: Solano County Public Health will update its COVID Dashboard ONLY ON MONDAYS & THURSDAYS as of March 14, 2022

DEATHS:  Solano reported no new deaths in today’s report. Trending: Fifteen new deaths were reported in February, ALL over 65 years of age.  We can’t be sure this is a final number because the County often post-dates deaths and hospitalizations. Still, it’s encouraging.  Until February, the County saw increasing COVID-related deaths each month since last November, rising to 30 in January.  A total of 396 Solano residents have now died of COVID or COVID-related causes over the course of the pandemic.

CASES BY AGE GROUP: The color-coded chart (below) shows an alarming steady increase among youth and children in Solano County.  The chart displays quarterly and recent snapshots in time by age group, each as a percentage of total cases since the outbreak began.  Increases are in red and decreases are in green as reported by Solano County.  Note the continuing increase among children & youth of Solano County.  The population of those age 0-17 in Solano County is roughly 22%.
TRANSMISSION RATE: Solano is still experiencing a HIGH transmission rate, with a total of 514 new cases over the last 7 days. Encouraging: this is down from 1,126 at last report, and approaching the CDC’s SUBSTANTIAL rate for the first time since December 22 of last year.  CDC FORMULA: Based on Solano County’s population, 450 or more cases in 7 days places Solano in the CDC’s population-based definition of a HIGH transmission rate.  We would need to drop below 225 cases in 7 days to rate as having only MODERATE community transmission.

CURRENT The number of those currently hospitalized with COVID in Solano County rose today from 39 to 45 persons.  Current hospitalizations don’t tell the whole story, as it reflects both admissions and discharges.  Only from the increase in total hospitalizations can we know how many new admissions have come to our hospitals.

TOTAL hospitalizations over the course of the pandemic – Solano County’s total hospitalized must be independently discovered in the County’s occasional update of hospitalizations by Age Group and by Race/Ethnicity.  Solano Public Health has not updated its Age Group and Race/Ethnicity charts since February 18.  Our known total since the beginning of the outbreak (as of Feb 18) was 3,693 Solano residents hospitalized.

ICU Bed Availability in Solano County rose today from 24% to 27%, still in the Yellow danger zone.

Ventilator Availability  improved today from 66% to 71% available. 

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HOW DOES TODAY’S REPORT COMPARE?  See recent reports and others going back to April 20, 2020 in my ARCHIVE of daily Solano COVID updates (an excel spreadsheet).

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>The data on this page is from the Solano County COVID-19 Dashboard.  The Dashboard is full of much more information and updated Monday, Wednesday and Friday around 4 or 5pm.  On the County’s dashboard, you can hover a mouse or click on an item for more information.  Note the tabs at top for “Summary, Demographics” and “Vaccines.”  Click here to go to today’s Solano County Dashboard.

See also my BENINDY ARCHIVE of daily Solano COVID updates (an excel spreadsheet).  I have also archived the hundreds of full CORONAVIRUS REPORTS posted here almost daily on the Benicia Independent since April 2020.

RETURN TO TOP

At the top of yesterday’s Solano County COVID Dashboard, Public Health announced that it will no longer post updates on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

The notice reads: Solano County Public Health Dashboards **Notice: Dashboard will be updated on Mondays and Thursdays starting the week of March 14, 2022**

This is further evidence of our Public Health Officer’s misreading of the urgency and still alarming spread of the virus here in Benicia and throughout the County. Solano leadership seems oblivious to the potential rise of the new “stealth variant” of COVID, BA.2. (See Yale Medicine, Omicron and the BA.2 Subvariant: A Guide to What We Know).

The past should provide a key warning: Solano Public Health cut back on its sharing of COVID data once before.  In the third week of June last year (2021), when the Delta variant had subsided some and we found ourselves in a lull, Public Health quit reporting 5 days a week, and went to their current M/W/F dashboard updates.

We never returned to the 5-day reporting, even as Omicron blossomed, sickened and killed.

I wrote to our too optimistic Public Health Officer, Dr. Bela Matyas, expressing my disappointment, and copied my Solano County Supervisor, Monica Brown – but I doubt my warning will have any effect.

• • Dr. Bela Matyas: BTMatyas@SolanoCounty.com
  • Supervisor Monica Brown: MEBrown@solanocounty.com
  • All Solano County Supervisors: solanocounty.com/depts/bos/members/default.asp