Benicia City Council to decide on city-wide mask mandate at Aug. 24 special meeting
Benicia Herald, by Galen Kusic, August 20, 2021
[Reprinted with permission, not available online. Subscribe]
Nearly 81 percent of Benicia’s residents are fully vaccinated, making it the second most vaccinated city in the county, next to Rio Vista. However, as the Delta variant of COVID-19 continues to spread throughout the country, state and in Solano County, Benicia is not being spared.
Over the past five days, Benicia has recorded 20 new COVID-19 cases, an average of five new cases per day, for a total of 1,187 cases since the pandemic began. And while Benicia has the lowest incidence rate in the county at 4,305 per 100,000 residents, the uptick is alarming.
That is what spurred Mayor Steve Young and Vice Mayor Tom Campbell to bring back a discussion on whether to mandate masks in public indoor spaces within Benicia. The eight other Bay Area counties have already implemented the mandate, while Solano County Health Officer Bela Matyas is the lone holdout. In a unanimous vote on Tue. night at the regular City Council meeting, councilmembers voted to bring back the item for a vote on whether to implement the mandate at the Aug. 24 special meeting.
“I implemented a mask mandate within our store a week ago because of the Delta virus strain,” said Councilmember and First St. business owner Christina Strawbridge. “I think it’s the responsible thing to do. I have to protect my staff and I have to protect my customers…I’m hoping we can rise above politics here.”
Matyas has been invited to attend the meeting. It should be a spirited conversation at the least as the majority of residents spoke out in favor of the mandate.
BUSD Trustees Sheri Zada and Mark Maselli retain confidence of Benicia residents
Facebook post, by Alan Zada, August 23, 2021
[Mr. Zada’s source for this was a phone conversation with Laura King of the Solano County Registrar of Voters office at 5pm today.]
The Benicia School Board recall against Sheri Schulman Zada and Mark Maselli is dead. The deadline to submit the signatures was today. The proponents of this uncalled for recall effort were only able to get 177 signatures out of the required 4,000 (only 4%).
Thank you everyone that stood up against bullying of two outstanding school board members.
DEATHS: The County reported 2 new deaths today, 1 person age 50-64 and 1 age 65+. One was Hispanic/Latinx and one was White. Total deaths now number 264.
Percentage of cases by age groups. Click to enlarge.
CASES: The County reported 238 new COVID cases over the weekend, 79 per day, down dramatically from last week’s 157 per day. Case numbers show a startling increase in the PERCENTAGE OF YOUNG PERSONS age 0-17, increasing 0.3% last week to a new high of 13.2% of total cases. The percentage of youth cases has increased very slowly over the course of the pandemic, starting below 6%, and very gradually reaching 12% in mid-April of 2021. CASES-PER DAY TREND (All Age Groups): We are experiencing a dramatic “summer surge” now. Cases-per-day were trending downward in the Spring, but rose rapidly in July and are skyrocketing here in August:ACTIVE CASES:Solano’s 833 ACTIVE cases was down from Friday’s astonishing high or 1,087, but still up alarmingly from 212 on July 2, and in the range we experienced during the winter surge.
POSITIVE TEST RATE: Down some today, thank goodness, but much higher than US & California! Our 7-day average percent positivity rate was 15.7% today, down from 20.1% Friday, but still twice the purple tier margin, and over 3 times today’s California rate of 4.5% and nearly 1.5 times today’s U.S. rate of 11.5%. [Source: Johns Hopkins]WARNING:The Delta Variant is here in Solano County and spreading fast. Time to mask up again – watch out and take care!
Hospitalizations
CURRENT hospitalizations were up slightly today from 138 to 143 persons, still higher than any time since the winter surge.
ICU Bed Availability was down shockingly today from 24% to only 18%, in the yellow danger zone and lower than anytime since January 29.
Ventilator Availability was also down today from 54% to 51%, lower than anytime since Feb. 4.
TOTAL Hospitalized– The County’s Monday-Friday dashboard shows an intake/discharge total of CURRENTLY hospitalized cases (above), but never reports on the TOTAL hospitalized over the course of the pandemic. That total must be independently discovered in the County’s occasional update of the Hospitalizations by Age Group chart. The County did not update its Hospitalizations by Age Group chart today. The Age Group chart shows a total of 2,056 persons hospitalized since the beginning of the outbreak, in the following age groups:
Age Group
Hospitalizations
% of Total
0-17
36
2%
18-49
585
28%
50-64
549
27%
65+
886
43%
TOTAL
2,056
100%
Hospitalizations are also recorded on the County’s demographic chart labeled “Hospitalizations by Race / Ethnicity.”The chart was not updated today. Here are the current numbers and percentages. Interestingly, the total doesn’t square with the total by age groups.
Race / Ethnicity
Hospitalizations
% of Total
Asians
323
17%
Black / African American
336
17%
Hispanic / Latinx
555
29%
White
631
33%
Multirace / Others
84
4%
TOTAL
1,919
100%
Face Coverings… Good News in Benicia
Benicia City Council voted last week to move forward tomorrow, Tues. Aug. 24, in consideration of a Citywide indoors mask mandate for all public places. Agenda here. If the City moves forward with the mandate tomorrow, it will be the first Solano city to take action despite the County’s lack of strong guidance on masks. In the Bay Area, Solano County REMAINS the only holdout against even RECOMMENDING masks in public indoors spaces. Hopefully, Dr. Matyas will learn from Benicia, and make the necessary difficult decisions.
Wearing masks again, social distancing & vaccination…
“Breakthrough” numbers are small in comparison to the huge surge in cases and hospitalizations among the unvaccinated, but it’s still a significant new factor. We were just beginning to associate more freely with fully vaccinated friends and family, and now we understand that a small percentage of the vaccinated among us may be asymptomatic and unknowingly transmitting the virus, and inevitably helping spread the disease to someone who knows someone, who knows someone else, who knows yet another someone who is not vaccinated, or who is too young or too health-compromised to be vaccinated – and who may end up seriously ill or even dead! Please mask indoors in public now, and maybe even indoors with vaccinated family and friends! And PLEASE talk to anyone you know who isn’t vaccinated. This thing ain’t over yet!
Cases by City on Monday, August 23:
Beniciaadded 11 new cases today, a total of 1,216 cases since the outbreak began, 4.4% of its population of 27,570.
Dixon added 9 new cases today, total of 2,169 cases, 11.0% of its population of 19,794.
Fairfield added 69 new cases today, total of 10,596 cases, 9.0% of its population of 117,149.
Rio Vista added 3 new cases today, total of 475 cases, 5.0% of its population of 9,416.
Suisun Cityadded 15 new cases today, total of 2,753 cases, 9.3% of its population of 29,447.
Vacaville added 50 new cases today, a total of 10,175 cases, 10.3% its of population of 98,807.
Vallejoadded 80 new cases today, a total of 11,496 cases, 9.6% of its population of 119,544.
Unincorporatedadded 1 new case today, a total of 122 cases (population figures not available).
BENICIA, Calif. (KRON) – One city is taking matters into its own hands when it comes to masking.
Solano County is the only county in the Bay Area without a mask mandate, but Benicia is considering implementing one.
On Tuesday, city council will be voting on a resolution to require face masks in indoor settings.
Mariana Moore has lived in the city for more than 40 years.
She says she loves it here but thinks they need to do more to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“If you follow the news at all and you follow the science you have to wear masks. I have kids in school and they’re wearing masks. The teachers are wearing masks.”
Mayor Steve Young tells KRON4 he’s been hearing similar calls for a mask mandate from other Benicia residents – and since the county isn’t going to implement one, he’s looking to do it on the city level.
“It’s frustrating to feel like on one hand we’re out of step with the rest of the county but perhaps another way to look at it is Solano County is out of step with the larger Bay Area community.”
Mayor Young says back at the beginning of the pandemic, the city had to institute a mask mandate on their own as well because health leaders wouldn’t do it on the county level.
“We are more likely to follow the lead of what we perceive to be the scientific consensus on masks.”
Moore says she hopes to see the county put this into effect this week.
“I just hope everyone thinks about how to not only take care of their own needs and their own desires but what we can do as a community. That’s what we have to do to beat this.”
The resolution to requiring masks was just introduced last week and it will be voted on this Tuesday at the city council meeting.
The mayor says they need three votes to pass the resolution.
He told KRON4 News he will be voting for it, the vice mayor will also be voting in favor, so they only need one more vote. He says based on conversations he’s had, he believes they’ll get it.
Benicia Herald, by Galen Kusic, August 20, 2021
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