Stanislaus County is in danger of falling back to most restrictive coronavirus tier
Stanislaus County officials are not confident of meeting the criteria of the state’s stringent program for limiting coronavirus outbreaks, and the county could slide back to the most restrictive tier.
It’s going to be close Tuesday when the California Department of Public Health determines if the county met the requirements for staying in the second (or red) tier over a weeklong period.
Missing the mark Tuesday won’t knock the county out of red. But the county’s daily case rate was too high for the week ending Saturday, officials said.
Two straight weeks of not meeting the red criteria means the county would fall back to the most restrictive purple tier with the state update set for Nov. 3.
The state checkup Tuesday is based on the county’s coronavirus data for Oct. 11-17. The Nov. 3 update will consider the week of Oct. 18-24.
“We are right on the edge,” county Supervisor Vito Chiesa said, estimating the county’s case rate will be over or under the 7 per 100,000 limit by a couple of tenths Tuesday.
Dr. Julie Vaishampayan, county health officer, said Friday the county case data were in the 40s per day last week, rising to 54 new cases Friday. On Saturday, the county logged 63 new cases. The county needs a daily average of 39 new cases or lower to stay in the red tier. It expects to meet a second state criteria of test positivity under 8 percent.
County leaders are vesting their hopes in squeaking by Tuesday and getting people to follow the public health guidelines to bring the numbers down, so businesses stay open and employees keep earning paychecks. The advice is simple: Wear a mask and practice social distancing.
People can also make a difference by cutting back on Halloween activities Saturday. A surge of infections from Halloween festivities could push the county back to purple in November.
“It is really up to people to take the right measures to keep us moving forward and not have us slip back,” Vaishampayan said.
The county said goodbye to the purple tier Oct. 13, allowing restaurants to serve customers indoors, expanding capacity for retail stores and permitting fitness centers, other businesses and worship services within limits.
Under the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy, counties in California can reopen more economic activity by meeting stringent criteria for the orange and yellow tiers. But Stanislaus is fighting to keep from sliding in the opposite direction.
Vaishampayan said schools will be eligible to open classrooms for all grade levels Wednesday under state guidelines, regardless of the next update, because Tuesday will mark 14 days in the red tier. School districts that open don’t have to turn around and close campuses if the county falls back to purple status.
What’s sometimes called the yo-yo effect is mostly reserved for private businesses, much to the consternation of critics of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s coronavirus policies.
“It is so random,” Supervisor Terry Withrow said. “We were told when this started it was all about our hospitals being overrun. Now, as that has gotten better, it was switched to cases. Our hospitals are fine. To shut down the economy again is ridiculous.”
The daily count of COVID-stricken patients in local hospital beds has been flat for at least two weeks, averaging 41 per day. The California Department of Public Health has projected a 46 percent statewide increase in coronavirus hospitalizations in a month.
Chiesa said Stanislaus and other counties will continue working with their state association to bring concerns about the coronavirus response to the Newsom administration. Chiesa said it’s tough for restaurant owners to hire employees and purchase food for preparation only to find out a week later they are closed.
Restaurants were able to resume business in late May, but then were limited to outdoor dining and takeout about a month later when a strong resurgence of COVID-19 illness prompted a state-ordered rollback in 19 counties including Stanislaus.
Stanislaus County challenges a previous update
The county challenged the state’s Sept. 28 update through an adjudication process in the state program. Stanislaus, which was then in the purple tier, failed to meet the criteria for moving to red when its case rate was adjusted upward, because its testing volume was below the state median.
Vaishampayan said it turned out the county was doing as much testing as other counties and its case data should not have been adjusted. The state was only taking into account lab results reported electronically, she said.
Nursing homes and other facilities in Stanislaus County were using test laboratories that were not able to report lab tests to the state’s CalREDIE system. About 900 to 1,000 test results with low positivity were not received by the state, Vaishampayan said.
She said many out-of-state labs are not getting test results to California’s reporting system. More than 10 care facilities in Stanislaus were using 10 different laboratories. Some were doing twice-a-week testing.
With the adjudication process, the county was not trying to change the outcome of the Sept. 20 tier assignment but wanted to draw attention to issue of unreported lab tests, Vaishampayan said. The state has not posted a decision on the adjudication request, which was submitted Oct. 16.
Adjudication is an option for the county if it wants to contest a state decision returning Stanislaus to a more restrictive tier. The process is allowed if there’s a discrepancy in data that affects tier status.
This story was originally published October 26, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
