San Benito County Public Health officials are reporting the number of new Covid-19 cases is still on the rise in the county including another death in their latest report.
As of Sept. 18, county officials reported an 11th death and 1,272 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the county, which is 59 more reported since last week.
Confirmed cases include patients who have since recovered and those who are deceased. It’s the first death in the county since Sept. 8.
The county’s Covid-19 dashboard shows that there are currently 40 active cases with 12 new cases as of Friday afternoon. There’s been 13,826 tested for the novel coronavirus locally. Of these, 12,526 have tested negative and 1,221 patients have recovered.
The data from the Public Health Services’ latest community newsletter shows that of the 1,272 positive cases of Covid-19, 45 patients are in the 0-4 age group; 324 are in the 5-24 age group; 546 are in the 25-49; 246 patients are in the 50-64 age group; and 110 are age 64 or older.
The newsletter also shows that San Benito County continues to be at the purple “widespread” risk level as of Sept. 18. The limits for the “widespread” tier are no more than seven daily new cases per 100,000 residents, and a positivity rate less than 8 percent.
The county, according to state data, had a case rate of 16.1 daily new cases per 100,000 residents and a test positivity rate of 8.1 percent for the week ending Sept. 5.
At a minimum, counties must remain in a tier for at least three weeks before moving forward from the purple “Widespread” tier to the red “Substantial” tier after meeting the criteria of the less restrictive level for 14 consecutive days.
To move forward, a county must meet the next tier’s criteria for two consecutive weeks. Data is reviewed weekly and tiers are updated on Tuesdays.
