Teachers, farmworkers now eligible for COVID vaccine in Yolo County
Teachers and farmworkers are among those now eligible for COVID-19 vaccination at Yolo County clinics.
The county announced Tuesday that while large healthcare providers in the county are not yet expanding eligibility to essential workers in Phase 1B, Tier 1, the county will be doing so effective this week.
Previously the county was providing vaccines only for healthcare workers and those 65 and over, but many have been pressuring the county to move farmworkers and teachers, among others, into the eligible pool.
The county will now do so, beginning by offering a limited number of appointments this week for frontline workers who live or work in Yolo County, with more clinics to be announced next week.
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Fifty Yolo County residents were in hospitals with COVID-19 on Saturday, the most ever during the course of the pandemic.
The vast majority were hospitalized outside the county, with county data showing just 16 COVID-positive patients at Sutter Davis and Woodland Memorial hospitals, including nine in intensive care beds.
The county has also reported 11 more COVID-19 deaths over the past week.
The good news: The county has shown a decline in new cases, as well as a continuing drop in the test positivity rate, over the last seven days. The positivity rate of 3.9 percent for the week of Jan. 14 to 20 is the lowest since mid-October.
School board to hear virus update, discuss reopening
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On Thursday evening, Jan. 7, the Davis school board will assess the status of the coronavirus pandemic in Yolo County, after hearing an update from Yolo County Health Officer Dr. Aimee Sisson.
The school board trustees will hear a presentation by school district staff describing several different scenarios for the eventual return of students and teachers to school classroom, and consider an appropriate timeline for the resumption of classroom learning.
In addition, the trustees are likely to discuss Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recently announced “Safe Schools for All” initiative a proposed $2 billion program that would offer local districts a number of financial incentives to reopen elementary schools to students and teachers during the early months of 2021. (The fine details of the governor’s proposal, which was announced at a press conference on Wednesday, Dec. 30, are not entirely clear yet).
Healthy Davis Together expands COVID testing to skilled nursing facilities
The heavy toll that COVID-19 has taken on some of Yolo County’s oldest and most vulnerable residents continues, with cases and deaths mounting in skilled nursing facilities.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, 51 nursing home residents and staff members have died of COVID-19, more than half of all the deaths that have occurred countywide.
On Monday alone, the county reported 72 more cases and two more deaths linked to outbreaks in Davis, Woodland and West Sacramento longterm care facilities.
Health officials have long linked nursing home outbreaks to overall community spread of the virus, with unsuspecting and often asymptomatic employees contracting the virus in the community and then bringing it into facilities.