Sonoma County's Increasing Caseload

I am back with with more local news! Unfortunately, it's not too great.

Sonoma County has posted the largest number of monthly COVID-19 cases since the pandemic started last March, recording 6,770 cases (as of Friday) in the month of January. This trend is a continuation of the 6,736 new cases discovered in December as a result of the holiday season.

The December and January totals are more than twice than our previous monthly peak at the surge of infections last summer. At that time, 2,856 new cases were logged in August.

The winter surge resulted in 68 coronavirus-related deaths. The previous surge in August and September resulted in 43 and 42 deaths, respectively. Put all together, the virus has claimed the lives of 260 Sonoma County residents.

This marks a very grim milestone for Sonoma County.

Sonoma County Supervisors Chair Lynda Hopkins shared this milestone at a news briefing on Friday. "We have now lost more folks in Sonoma County to COVID-19 than we have to fires and floods. We have to look at those fatalities and do everything that we can to prevent future deaths."

So how can we do this?

Hopkins and county health officials said at that same news briefing that local vaccination efforts will play a key role in saving the lives of those most likely to die from COVID-19. By waiting our turn and letting those over 75 get vaccinated first, we are saving many lives.

In addition, and this may be obvious at this point, we can also keep staying safe and reducing the spread by following all coronavirus guidelines. Stay at home as much as possible, and stay within your immediate family. If going out, wear a mask. If in a place with many people (such as a grocery store), maybe consider double-masking it.

If we all do this, we can mitigate this virus together.

Source: https://www.sonomanews.com/article/news/sonoma-county-posts-biggest-monthly-number-of-covid-19-cases/

#teen #news #blog #covid19 #coronavirus #sonomacounty