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Solano County sees fewer new COVID cases: ‘only’ 103 over the weekend

NOTE: The information below is not the latest.  CLICK HERE for today’s latest information.
By Roger Straw, Monday, December 13, 2021
[See Important details on the extension of Benicia’s mask mandate BELOW.]

Monday, December 13: Solano County reports
103 new infections and 2 hospitalizations.  Solano remains in a SUBSTANTIAL rate of community transmission;  Benicia remains in a HIGH rate of community transmission.

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

DEATHS: Solano reported no new deaths today.  The County reported 27 COVID deaths in September, 18 in October, 11 in November, and 13 so far in December (24 of us are dead in the last 26 days, since November 17).  A total of 339 Solano residents have now died of COVID or COVID-related causes over the course of the pandemic.

CASES BY AGE GROUP: The County reported 103 new COVID cases over the weekend.  16 of these 103 new cases (16%) were youth and children under 18.  56 (54%) were age 18-49, 18 (17%) were age 50-64, and 13 (13%) were 65+.
BELOW: color-coded analysis of CASES REPORTED BY AGE GROUP, expressed as a percentage of TOTAL CASES.  Increases are in red and decreases are in green as reported by Solano County since April of 2020.  Note  the steady increase among children and youth of Solano County.  The population of those age 0-17 in Solano County is roughly 22%.COMPARE: U.S. cases among children and youth aged 0-17 as percentage of total cases is at 15.7% as of today. (From the CDC covid-data-tracker.)

COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION RATE: Over the last 7 days, Solano has seen SUBSTANTIAL community transmission, with 346 new cases, down from 397 on Friday.  CDC FORMULA: Based on Solano County’s population, 450 cases in 7 days would move Solano up into the CDC’s population-based definition of a HIGH transmission rate, and we will need to drop below 225 cases in 7 days to rate as having only MODERATE community transmission.

ACTIVE CASES: Solano’s 223 ACTIVE cases is down substantially from from Friday’s 402 active cases.  Good news!

CASES BY CITY on Monday, December 13:

  • Benicia added 7 new cases today, a total of 1,634 cases since the outbreak began, and 28 cases over the last 7 days.  Benicia remains in the HIGH rate of community transmission.  (see chart below).  Based on Benicia population, MODERATE is defined as less than 14 cases over the last 7 days, SUBSTANTIAL is 14-27 cases, and HIGH is 28 or more cases.  Benicia will need to maintain fewer than 14 new cases-per-7-days for 30 consecutive days before relaxing its mask mandate.  Note above that Solano County is currently experiencing SUBSTANTIAL transmission.

  • Dixon added 11 new cases today, total of 2,626 cases.
  • Fairfield added 25 new cases today, total of 12,723 cases.
  • Rio Vista reported 0 new cases today, total of 640 cases.
  • Suisun City added 9 new cases today, total of 3,362 cases.
  • Vacaville added 24 new cases today, a total of 12,563 cases.
  • Vallejo added 24 new cases today, a total of 13,870 cases.
  • Unincorporated added 3 new cases today, a total of 150 cases.

POSITIVE TEST RATE:  Solano’s 7-day percent positivity rate was 4.2% today, down from Friday’s 4.6%.  COMPARE: Today’s California rate is 3.71%.  [Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracking Center]  Today’s U.S. rate is 7.77%. [Source: CDC COVID Data Tracker.] 

HOSPITALIZATIONS:

CURRENT hospitalizations were down today from 21 persons to only 15 persons.  Good news!

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.  Solano Public Health updated its age and race hospitalizations charts today.  The age chart showed 2 previously unreported hospitalizations today, including 1 Black resident and 1 White resident, both age 50-64.  Solano hospitals have reported a total of 3,182 COVID patients since the beginning of the outbreak.  (Data on age is more reliable than that on race/ethnicity.)

ICU Bed Availability is up dramatically today, from 33% on Friday to 57% today, in the County’s safe GREEN zone.

Ventilator Availability today is also up today from 75% to 82%.

IMPORTANT NEWS!  BENICIA’S MASK MANDATE REMAINS IN PLACE – DETAILS…
On December 7, Benicia City Council chose to keep the city’s mask mandate in place for another 30 days and review again in January. All Councilmembers expressed confidence that Benicia’s case numbers are likely to remain in MODERATE transmission for a 30-day period soon, [note that this has NOT been the case – Benicia has lapsed back into the HIGH transmission rate].  After 30 days in the MODERATE rate, the City Manager is empowered to unilaterally lift the mask mandate.  Four Councilmembers (excluding Mr. Largaespada) chose to remain cautious under the current mandate, requiring the 30-days at MODERATE.  If all goes well, the mandate may have been lifted before a possible reconsideration at the January 18 Council meeting.  But if the mandate is still in place on January 18, Council has now directed staff to bring a recommendation at that time for changing the METRICS by which the City determines a safe cutoff date for lifting the mask mandate.   All members agreed that the 7-day-case-rate metric would be strengthened if in some fashion it could be combined with hospitalization rates and vaccination rates.  How to determine those rates, and how to combine them for a determination would be covered in the staff recommendation.
See the video discussion of the Dec. 7 Council meeting – CLICK HERE (then scroll down on the agenda and click on item number 21.A – UPDATE ON FACE COVERINGS MANDATE.)
Vallejo also passed an indoors mask mandate on August 31.  In the Bay Area, Solano County REMAINS the only holdout against a mask mandate for public indoors spaces.

SOLANO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS failed to consider an agendized proposal for a countywide MASK MANDATE on Tuesday, September 14.  Bay Area news put Solano in a sad light: all other county health officers issued a joint statement offering details on when they would be able to lift mask mandates (not likely soon).  TV news anchors had to point out that Solano would not be considering such a move since our health officer had not been able to “justify” a mask mandate in the first place.  The Solano Board of Supervisors has joined with Dr. Bela Matyas in officially showing poor leadership on the COVID-19 pandemic.

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