Category Archives: Covid 19

#wearamask, Benicia CA, Benicia City Council, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Face coverings, Hospitalizations, Omicron variant, Solano County CA, Solano County Health Department, Vaccine, Vaccine mandate

Solano County: one new death, 44 new infections

NOTE: The information below is not the latest.  CLICK HERE for today’s latest information.
By Roger Straw, Wednesday, December 15, 2021
[See Important details on California’s new mask mandate AND the extension of Benicia’s mask mandate BELOW.]

Wednesday, December 15: Solano County reports 44 new infections and 1 death.  Solano remains in a SUBSTANTIAL rate of community transmission;  Benicia drops from HIGH into a SUBSTANTIAL rate of community transmission.

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

DEATHS: Solano reported 1 new death today, someone aged 65+.  The County reported 27 COVID deaths in September, 18 in October, 11 in November, and 14 so far in December (25 of us have died in the last 28 days, since November 17).  A total of 340 Solano residents have now died of COVID or COVID-related causes over the course of the pandemic.

CASES BY AGE GROUP: The County reported 44 new COVID cases since Monday.  8 of these 44 new cases (18%) were youth and children under 18.  27 (61%) were age 18-49, 6 (14%) were age 50-64, and only 3 (7%) 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.  Note also for comparison the CDC’s U.S. chart below, noting the age groups in blue that have case rates higher than their percent of population. (From the CDC covid-data-tracker.)

(Click image to enlarge.)

COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION RATE: Over the last 7 days, Solano has seen SUBSTANTIAL community transmission, with 333 new cases, down from 346 on Monday.  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 250 ACTIVE cases is up from from Monday’s 223 active cases.

CASES BY CITY on Wednesday, December 15:

  • Benicia added only 3 new cases today, a total of 1,637 cases since the outbreak began, and 20 cases over the last 7 days, dropping from HIGH transmission into the SUBSTANTIAL 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 2 new cases today, total of 2,628 cases.
  • Fairfield added 13 new cases today, total of 12,736 cases.
  • Rio Vista reported 0 new cases today, total of 640 cases.
  • Suisun City added 2 new cases today, total of 3,364 cases.
  • Vacaville added 11 new cases today, a total of 12,574 cases.
  • Vallejo added 13 new cases today, a total of 13,883 cases.
  • Unincorporated added no new cases today, a total of 150 cases.

POSITIVE TEST RATE:  Solano’s 7-day percent positivity rate was 4.0% today, down from Monday’s 4.2%.  COMPARE: Today’s California rate is 1.8%.  [Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracking Center]  Today’s U.S. rate is 7.18%. [Source: CDC COVID Data Tracker.] 

HOSPITALIZATIONS:

CURRENT hospitalizations were up today from 15 persons to only 18 persons.

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 adjusted its age and race hospitalizations charts today, inexplicably showing 2 fewer (!) hospitalizations since Monday.  I’ll not try to explain or analyze that….  Solano hospitals have reported a total of 3,180 COVID patients since the beginning of the outbreak.  (Data on age is more reliable than that on race/ethnicity.)

ICU Bed Availability is down today, from 57% on Monday to 50% today, still in the County’s safe GREEN zone.

Ventilator Availability today is down slightly today from 82% to 81%.

TODAY: STATE OF CALIFORNIA ISSUES NEW MASK MANDATE

From COVID19.CA.GOV:
Wear your mask in indoor public spaces and workplaces!
Due to a recent increase in cases, CDPH has mandated that everyone in California wear a mask in indoor public spaces and workplaces. The order is in effect December 15, 2021 to January 15, 2022.  LEARN MORE…

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.

RETURN TO TOP

Sources
#wearamask, Benicia CA, Benicia City Council, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Face coverings, Hospitalizations, Omicron variant, Solano County CA, Solano County Health Department, Vaccine, Vaccine mandate

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
#wearamask, Benicia CA, Benicia City Council, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Face coverings, Hospitalizations, Omicron variant, Solano County CA, Solano County Health Department, Vaccine, Vaccine mandate

Solano Health Dept: Benicia back in HIGH community transmission rate, countywide 2-day increase of 186 cases

NOTE: The information below is not the latest.  CLICK HERE for today’s latest information.
By Roger Straw, Friday, December 10, 2021
[See Important new details on the extension of Benicia’s mask mandate BELOW.]

Friday, December 10: Solano County reports
186 new infections. Solano remains in a SUBSTANTIAL rate of community transmission;  Benicia moves up into HIGH transmission rate over past 7 days.

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 early December (24 of us are dead in the last 23 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 186 new COVID cases in the last 2 days.  43 of these 186 new cases (23%) were youth and children under 18.  90 (48%) were age 18-49, 34  (18%) were age 50-64, and 19 (10%) 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, up from 15.5% on Wednesday. (From the CDC covid-data-tracker.)

COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION RATE: Over the last 7 days, Solano has seen SUBSTANTIAL community transmission, with 397 new cases, up from 328 on Wednesday and approaching HIGH transmission (450 new cases).  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 402 ACTIVE cases is up from Wednesday’s 373, and far above our summer rates.

CASES BY CITY on Friday, December 10:

  • Benicia added 10 new cases today, a total of 1,627 cases since the outbreak began, and 28 cases over the last 7 days.  This moves Benicia back into the HIGH rate of community transmission for the first time since October 18.  (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 10 new cases today, total of 2,615 cases.
  • Fairfield added 50 new cases today, total of 12,698 cases.
  • Rio Vista reported 5 new cases today, total of 640 cases.
  • Suisun City added 8 new cases today, total of 3,353 cases.
  • Vacaville added 46 new cases today, a total of 12,539 cases.
  • Vallejo added 56 new cases today, a total of 13,846 cases.
  • Unincorporated added 1 new case today, a total of 147 cases.

POSITIVE TEST RATE:  Solano’s 7-day percent positivity rate was 4.6% today, down from Wednesday’s 4.9%.  COMPARE: Today’s California rate is 1.9%.  [Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracking Center]  Today’s U.S. rate is 7.5%. [Source: CDC COVID Data Tracker.] 

HOSPITALIZATIONS:

CURRENT hospitalizations were steady today at 21 persons, still above the range we saw during last summer.

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 did not update its age and race hospitalizations charts today.  Solano hospitals reported a total of 3,180 COVID patients since the beginning of the outbreak.  (Data on age is more reliable than that on race/ethnicity.)

ICU Bed Availability is down today, from 39% on Wednesday to 33% today, in the County’s GREEN zone.

Ventilator Availability today is up a bit today from 74% to 75%.

IMPORTANT NEWS!  BENICIA’S MASK MANDATE REMAINS IN PLACE – NEW DETAILS…
On Tuesday, 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, at which time the City Manager is empowered to unilaterally lift the mask mandate.  But four Councilmembers (excluding Mr. Largaespada) chose to remain cautious under the current mandate.  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 then for changing the METRICS by which the City will determine 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
Benicia City Council, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Mandatory face coverings, Masks

Dr. Richard Fleming: Open Letter to Benicia City Council on Mask Mandate

Thanks!  And about the data we use for our decision-making…

Richard Fleming, M.D., Benicia, CA

Benicia Mayor and Council Members:

Thank you for continuing the mask mandate at your meeting last night. I really appreciate the time and attention you have been devoting to this issue. And I’m sorry to keep writing you, because I know you are all very busy. But I hope you can take a few minutes to read this email.

I am writing to express my concern with using only one metric — and a problematic metric at that — as the basis to decide to lift the mask mandate. And I also feel that the mask mandate should not be automatically lifted without further discussion at a meeting of the city council, even if one or more metrics are met.

Problems with case rate metric. There are two problems limiting the use of the case rate as a metric for measuring community transmission of covid-19. As Councilmember Largaespada has pointed out, the case rate depends on how many people are being tested. The second flaw is that increasing numbers of people are doing at home covid tests, and data from these tests does not get captured in the official case rate numbers. The use of at-home testing will continue increasing in the weeks and months ahead for obvious reasons. The case rate should be looked at, but is not in and of itself an adequate measure of covid in our city.

Other metrics can help. Eight of the nine Bay Area counties are using 3 metrics, as has been discussed previously. City data is available on two of the three, and county data is available for hospitalization rates. Using 3 metrics in combination would provide more clarity about the extent of the virus’ presence in Benicia. If only one metric is going to be used, either the vaccination rate or the (county) hospitalization rate would be less subject to sampling bias than the case rate. But since all three data points are available, why not use them? Each metric has some validity issues, so using all 3 together provides a more accurate picture.

Vaccination rate. There was some discussion at your meeting last night over how to view the vaccination rate. The specific issues were whether to use a numerator of people who have gotten at least one shot or those who are fully-vaccinated, should the denominator be the entire population or those eligible for vaccines, and differing vaccination rates by age.

(a) The fully-vaccinated rate is most meaningful. Data shows that a single shot (Pfizer) reduces risk of infection by 52%, while the second shot reduces risk by 95%. Similar date is available for Moderna. But immunity wanes over time. At 6 months after the second vaccine dose, people’s immunity is roughly the same as if they had only gotten one shot. Far fewer than half of fully-vaccinated people have received boosters yet, so the fully-vaccinated percentage overstates the proportion of the population who are well-protected. As far as what denominator to use, while I feel the best denominator is the entire population, it is reasonable to use a denominator of those eligible for vaccination, i.e. five years of age and up. According to California’s Department of Health and Human Services, 73.3% of Benicia’s population over age 4 is fully vaccinated as of November 30. (My statement last night that 67.7% were fully vaccinated was based on numbers from early November and using the entire population as the denominator). While 73.3% is a good number, we are still lower than the fully-vaccinated rate of most Bay Area counties.

(b) Vaccination rates by age. While older people are more vaccinated than younger, it is still important to try to safeguard younger people from this virus. Though the risk of death for younger people is lower, there is growing data on the prevalence of long-lasting symptoms among young people after covid infection. So, even though most of our city’s elderly are fully-vaccinated, we should not relinquish our efforts to protect all age groups. The virus is having a serious impact beyond hospitalizations and deaths.

Hospitalization rate. This metric is less subject to the vagaries of the officially measured case-rate data, but is not specifically available for our city. Another factor with this metric is that as treatment options improve, hospitalization rates will likely decline even if actual cases were to be increasing. Nonetheless, this metric can be helpful in combination with the other two metrics. As was noted at your meeting last night, hospitalizations for south county residents may well be lower than for north county residents. Nonetheless, the county’s hospitalization rate is a proxy for Benicia’s hospitalization rate, even if the actual number for Benicia is lower than the county’s. Solano’s current hospitalization rate is 10/100K. This is much higher than any other Bay Area county, and is also higher than the state’s hospitalization rate (9/100K). Even if Benicia’s residents are being hospitalized at a lower rate than the county, it is still most likely a higher number than in many other Bay Area communities.

Looking to the future. As was clearly articulated by several speakers at last night’s meeting, we need to not only look at the past, but try to anticipate the future. Looking at our hospitalization and local case rates trending down and vaccination rates trending up is indeed reassuring. As several of you said at last night’s meeting, the susceptible population in Benicia is shrinking. This bodes well for the future. But please take note of and keep in mind the following — even though all other Bay Area counties are much better vaccinated than we are, the case rates are trending up significantly in 7 of those 8 counties. Hospitalizations are also trending up in 5 of those 8 counties. Vaccination status is protective, yes, but recent trend lines in those counties point to a problem, likely due to cooler weather, holiday activities, and some degree of waning immunity.

Based on the above, I strongly urge you to do two things:

1. Switch to using 3 metrics to make decisions about public health safety measures to confront covid-19. Three metrics will provide a more accurate picture of the pandemic’s status in Benicia.

2. Do not lift public health measures based on auto-pilot, certainly not using one metric, but even if you decide to use 3 metrics. Instead, when the metrics are met, I urge you to then discuss the issue at your next city council meeting. There are so many other factors which may be at play even if the metrics are met, and a decision which can have such an impact on so many people’s health and welfare should be carefully thought through and discussed.

Thank you,

Richard Fleming, MD
Benicia, CA