San Benito County Public Health officials are reporting the number of new daily cases of Covid-19 has gone back up, slowing down any progress they made to move into the next level of the California Blueprint for a safer economy.
The data from the Public Health Services’ latest community newsletter shows that San Benito County continues to be at the purple “widespread” risk level as of Sept. 30.
The county, according to state data, had a case rate of 10.9 daily new cases per 100,000 residents and a test positivity rate of 7.5 percent for the week ending Sept. 19.
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 new numbers are a slight jump from the previous data that showed 4.9 daily new cases per 100,000 residents and a test positivity rate of 4.5 percent for the week ending Sept. 12.
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. Data is reviewed weekly and tiers are updated on Tuesdays.
As of Sept. 30, county officials have reported 11 deaths and 1,352 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the county. That’s an increase of 240 cases reported since the first of this month.
Confirmed cases include patients who have since recovered and those who are deceased. Three deaths were reported this month: two on Sept. 8 and a third just ten days later.
The county’s Covid-19 dashboard shows that there are currently 32 active cases with four new cases as of Sept. 30. There have been 14,592 patients tested for the novel coronavirus locally. Of these, 13,215 have tested negative and 1,309 patients have recovered.
The newsletter also shows that of the 1,352 positive cases of Covid-19, 47 patients are in the 0-4 age group; 345 are in the 5-24 age group; 584 are in the 25-49; 260 patients are in the 50-64 age group; and 115 are age 64 or older.
