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Solano County Monday update: 8 COVID dead, 169 new infections

By Roger Straw, Monday, October 4, 2021

Monday, October 4: Solano County reports 8 COVID deaths and 169 new infections

Solano County COVID dashboard SUMMARY:
[Sources: see below.]

DEATHS: Solano reported 8 new COVID-related deaths today, one age 50-64 and seven over 65.  The County accounted for race/ethnicity of six of the eight: 1 Hispanic, 4 White and 1 Multirace.  Solano deaths over the course of the pandemic now total 305.  The County reported 32 COVID deaths over the last 30 days.

CASES: The County reported  169 new COVID cases over the weekend, 54 per day.  AGES: 33 of these 169 cases (20%) were youth and children under 18.  49% were age 18-49, 19% were age 50-64, and only 12% were 65+.

COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION RATE: Over the last 7 days, Solano has seen 639 new cases, up from 518 on Friday and decidedly in the CDC’s population-based definition of a HIGH transmission rate.

(CDC FORMULA: Based on Solano County population of 449,432, the CDC would rate us in “SUBSTANTIAL” transmission with 225 cases over the last 7 days.  Double that, or 450 cases in the last 7 days would rank us in “HIGH” transmission.  Reference: CDC’s “Level of SARS-CoV-2 Community Transmission”.]

ACTIVE CASES: Solano’s 514 ACTIVE cases is down from Friday’s 545, but still far above our summer rates.

POSITIVE TEST RATE:  Solano’s 7-day average percent positivity rate was only 6.7% today, down from Friday’s 7.8%.  COMPARE: today’s California rate is 2.0% and today’s U.S. rate is 6.4%.  [Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracking Center]

HOSPITALIZATIONS:

CURRENT hospitalizations were up today from 46 to 53 persons, and still in the range we saw during the winter surge.

ICU Bed Availability is up today, from 18% to 23%, but still in the yellow danger zone.  Again, we are in the worrisome range we saw during the winter surge.

Ventilator Availability remained at 57% today, still in the range of last February’s winter surge.

TOTAL hospitalizations: Solano County’s TOTAL hospitalized over the course of the pandemic must be independently discovered in the County’s occasional update of hospitalizations by Age Group and by Race/Ethnicity.  The County did not update its Hospitalizations charts today.  See below.  The differing race/ethnicity numbers indicate a number of persons whose race/ethnicity was not given or recorded.

FACE MASKS… Required for all in Benicia and Vallejo

Benicia City Council passed a citywide indoors mask mandate that went into effect on August 24 and includes everyone 4 years old and up when indoors in public places, even those of us who are vaccinated.  Benicia was joined by Vallejo on August 31.  In the Bay Area, Solano County REMAINS the only holdout against a mask mandate for public indoors spaces.

OLD NEWS BUT SIGNIFICANT – SOLANO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS failed to consider an agendized proposal for a countywide MASK MANDATE on Tuesday, September 14.  The Board’s agenda called for discussion of an indoors mask mandate for all and a vaccination mandate for county workers.  The Board voted 4-1 to require county-run facilities in Vallejo and Benicia to abide by local mandates.  But the Board voted down the vaccination mandate 3-2, and failed to even consider the agendized question of a county-wide mask mandate.  The Solano Board of Supervisors joined with Dr. Bela Matyas in officially showing poor leadership on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cases by City on Monday, October 4:
  • Benicia added 8 new cases today, a total of 1,447 cases since the outbreak began.  Benicia has seen 34 new cases over the last 7 days, solidly back in the CDC’s definition of HIGH community transmission (defined as 28 or more cases, based on Benicia population).  [Note that Solano County is at a level of HIGH transmission, and Solano’s 6 other cities are likely also individually experiencing high or substantial transmission.]
  • Dixon added 14 new cases today, total of 2,487 cases.
  • Fairfield added 42 new cases today, total of 11,980 cases.
  • Rio Vista added 2 new case today, total of 571 cases.
  • Suisun City added 10 new cases today, total of 3,166 cases.
  • Vacaville added 47 new cases today, a total of 11,736 cases.
  • Vallejo added 46 new cases today, a total of 13,096 cases.
  • Unincorporated added 0 new cases today, a total of 139 cases (population figures not available).

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

>>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.

Sources