By Roger Straw, Monday, February 14, 2022
Solano County offices were expected to be closed again today, Feb. 15 for Washington’s birthday. Surprisingly – and fortunately – Solano Public Health was able to post an update on its COVID dashboard this evening – its first since last Wed, Feb. 9. – R.S.Solano County reporting 1,095 new COVID infections, 177 hospitalizations and 4 deaths. Solano County and Benicia continue to experience an extremely high transmission rate!
Solano Public Health COVID dashboard, Monday, February 14, 2022:
DEATHS: Solano reported 4 new deaths in today’s report, all over 65 years of age. Trending: Eleven new deaths reported so far in February, all over 65 years of age. The County has seen increasing COVID-related deaths each month since last November, rising to 30 in January. (Compare with last winter: 24 deaths in January 2021, 42 in February and 33 in March.) A total of 392 Solano residents have now died of COVID or COVID-related causes over the course of the pandemic.
CASES BY AGE GROUP: My color-coded chart (below) shows a record over time. It shows an alarming steady increase among youth and children in Solano County. The chart displays quarterly and recent snapshots in time by age group, each as a percentage of total cases since the outbreak began. Increases are in red and decreases are in green as reported by Solano County. Note the continuing increase among children & 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 17.5% as of today. (From the CDC covid-data-tracker.)
COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION RATE: Solano is experiencing an EXTREMELY HIGH transmission rate, with a total of 3,889 new cases over the last 7 days, down from 4,010 at last report, but still way up from around 500 at Christmastime. CDC FORMULA: Based on Solano County’s population, 450 or more cases in 7 days places Solano in the CDC’s population-based definition of a HIGH transmission rate. We would need to drop below 225 cases in 7 days to rate as having only MODERATE community transmission.
ACTIVE CASES: Solano’s 1,523 ACTIVE cases today is down from 2,517 at last report, our lowest since January 10, but still way up from the County’s 329 active cases on last December 1.
CASES BY CITY – Monday, February 14, 2022 (5 days since Solano’s last report):
- BENICIA added 49 new cases today, a total of 2,971 cases since the outbreak began. TRANSMISSION RATE: Benicia has seen 107 new infections in the last 7 days, far above the CDC’s HIGH rate of community transmission. For a city with Benicia’s population, anything over 27 cases in 7 days is considered HIGH TRANSMISSION. (See chart below.) MASKS: >> At tomorrow’s Benicia City Council meeting, (Tues., Feb. 15), Council will consider whether and how to continue the citywide face mask mandate, in light of the State of California’s announcement that it will lift the statewide mandate on Feb. 16. >>Note that the Benicia City Council is considering adding multiple metrics rather than the single metric of the CDC’s 7-day case count to determine when it is safe to lift certain COVID restrictions (see Benicia Chooses to Continue Mask Mandate, 1/19/22). Note above that Solano County is currently also experiencing EXTREMELY HIGH transmission.
- Dixon added 50 new cases today, total of 4,070 cases.
- Fairfield added 314 new cases today, total of 20,663 cases.
- Rio Vista added 9 new cases today, total of 1,049 cases.
- Suisun City added 77 new cases today, total of 5,456 cases.
- Vacaville added 303 new cases today, a total of 19,009 cases.
- Vallejo added 293 new cases today, a total of 24,344 cases.
- Unincorporated added 0 new cases today, a total of 188 cases.
TEST RATE: Solano County’s 7-Day Percent Positive Test Rate shot up after Christmas and has continued through today’s very high 15%, (although today’s report shows a drop from 19% at last report and has fallen steadily from a high of 36% on Jan. 19.) Even so, SOLANO DOES NOT COMPARE FAVORABLY: The California 7-day % positive rate fell from 6.7% to 6.0% today. [Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracking Center] AND the U.S. 7-day % positive rate also fell today from 13.63% to 10.59%. [Source: CDC COVID Data Tracker.]
HOSPITALIZATIONS:
CURRENT hospitalizations fell today from 80 to 72 persons. Currently hospitalized persons in Solano peaked higher than ever before on Jan 22, at 207 persons in hospital. (The County’s previous high was 176 on Jan 7, 2021.)
TOTAL hospitalizations – Solano Public Health played catch-up today, dramatically updating its age and race hospitalizations charts today, adding 177 persons. Of the 177, 4 were under age 18, 50 were age 18-49, 34 were age 50-64, and 89 were age 65+. (Hospitalization by race data is often not reported.) Our total since the beginning of the outbreak is now 3,689 Solano residents hospitalized.
ICU Bed Availability in Solano County dropped slightly today from 21% to 20% available, in the Yellow danger zone.
Ventilator Availability rose slightly today from 51% to 52% available.
HOW DOES TODAY’S REPORT COMPARE? See recent reports and others going back to April 20, 2020 in 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.
See also my BENINDY ARCHIVE of daily Solano COVID updates (an excel spreadsheet). I have also archived the hundreds of full CORONAVIRUS REPORTS posted here almost daily on the Benicia Independent since April 2020.
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