Solano placed on state’s Covid watch list as hospitalizations rise
Fairfield Daily Republic, by Todd R. Hansen, June 30, 2020
FAIRFIELD — A local man in his 90s became the 24th person to die in Solano County because of Covid-19, the Public Health Division reported on Monday.
He contracted the disease from his family, Dr. Bela Matyas, the county public health officer, said in a phone interview.
“It’s not linked to any of the outbreaks in the county,”said Matyas, adding the man had been in the hospital for nearly a month.
Solano also became the 16th county to be placed on the state’s watch list because of a jump in hospitalizations, which if prolonged, could mean the forced closure of bars.
The county reported a jump of 13 hospitalizations since Friday afternoon’s report, bringing the total to 38.
The number of new cases, however, only went up by eight to 1,116, despite testing numbers going up by 2,504 to 29,620, the county reported. The number of active cases also saw a significant decrease from 250 to 70.
“Most of those cases are from the past and we finally caught up to them,” said Matyas, explaining that many are from the 80 or so farm laborers who work in the Sonoma and Napa vineyards, but spread the disease primarily because of their close living conditions in Fairfield and Dixon.
Graduation parties and Memorial Day weekend activities were also primary causes to why the active case numbers climbed, and now that those infectious periods are over and the county reporting has caught up, the numbers fell.
Matyas remains concerned about another spike because of the Fourth of July weekend.
And that could have a significant impact on Solano bars.
While Matyas said there is a “disconnect” between bar patronage and the actual cause of Covid-19 cases in Solano – again, due mostly to family gatherings – he understands why Gov. Gavin Newsom has to send some kind of message to county residents to ease their social practices.
Matyas said if the numbers continue to linger at the higher level, or go up over a three-day period, then the state will issue a recommendation that the bars be closed.
If the trend continues for 14 days, the state will order the bars closed, Matyas said.
Of the eight new cases reported, three were in Fairfield, bringing the city’s count to 363. Vallejo added two more to take its total to 462, and Vacaville also had two more cases for a tally of 152. The final new case was reported in Dixon, which now has 39 confirmed cases.
Suisun City (70), Benicia (25) and the combination of Rio Vista and the unincorporated area of the county (15) stayed the same.
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