The Chronicle has published two excellent reviews this week contrasting Solano County with our Bay Area neighbors. The first below profiles Solano with stats and detailed interviews with Solano leaders and residents.
In Solano County, the Bay Area’s COVID outlier, masks are anything but universal
SF Chronicle, by Kellie Hwang, Danielle Echeverria, Sep. 19, 2021
Spacco, a Vacaville resident and small-business owner in his 60s, and his friend Gregorio Serrao, in his 70s, both say they have no intention of getting vaccinated and oppose restricting people’s activities to try to control the spread of COVID-19. Over sandwiches recently at La Borgata Italian Deli on Vacaville’s Main Street, the two dismissed evidence proving that masks work to help block transmission of virus-laden droplets.
“At this point, if you get sick, that’s on you,” Serrao said. And it’s just inevitable, they agreed, that “you’re going to lose some people.”
Their views, which are at odds with national health advice about the coronavirus, are not hard to find in Solano County, a Bay Area outlier when it comes to the pandemic almost from the start.
The inland expanse dotted with suburbs and medium-size cities is the least vaccinated of the Bay Area’s nine counties. Just 54% of its 450,000 residents are fully vaccinated, compared with 67% in Napa and Sonoma, the counties with the next-lowest rate. It has a high daily infection rate — currently 18.6 cases per 100,000 people, the highest of any Bay Area county except Napa according to state data — and a hospitalization rate two to three times higher than that of other local counties.
And while the county’s case numbers, like those throughout the Bay Area, have shown improvement lately, the approach of local leaders — who have been less willing to restrict residents’ activities and impose mandates — has consistently set Solano apart.
It is the only Bay Area county that doesn’t require universal masking in indoor public settings, although two of its cities — Vallejo and Benicia — have imposed mandates. Solano lagged behind several other Bay Area counties in imposing stay-home orders last year, waiting until the state required it. Tuesday, Solano supervisors voted down a proposal requiring that county employees be vaccinated, saying it should be a personal choice.
Currently only unvaccinated people are required to wear masks in indoor public settings in Solano County, in line with state policies.
Many residents and officials say they want the county to act more aggressively. Supervisor Monica Brown, for instance, whose district covers Benicia and part of Vallejo, supports a broader mask mandate.
“Our health care workers are still being inundated with COVID-19 cases,” she said at a contentious board of supervisors meeting on Tuesday, noting that it’s impossible to know whether a maskless person is vaccinated.
Supervisor Mitch Mashburn said that with young children and immunocompromised people in his house, he wears a mask to be safe. Still, he doesn’t think it’s the role of the board to force people to be vaccinated or mask up.