Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a new stay-at-home order Thursday intended to curb rapidly rising cases of COVID-19. It’s unclear exactly when the new restrictions could take effect in Butte County.
The state will be implementing the new restrictions based on regional ICU capacity. Under the new system, Butte County falls under the Greater Sacramento region, which also includes the counties of Alpine, Amador, Colusa, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, Sierra, Sutter, Yolo, and Yuba.The Greater Sacramento region is currently at 22% ICU capacity. As soon as the entire region falls below 15%, lockdown orders similar to what will saw in March will take effect. At a press conferenceThursday afternoon, Danette York, director of Butte County Public Health, said it’s hard to say when exactly that might happen.
“As of right now our hospitals are not at or below that, but we will be watching closely in the event that they do fall below that,” she said.
According to the state’s projections, that could be as soon as this week. York said hospitals in the county are not currently overwhelmed, but that could change rapidly.
“ICU capacity could also be affected by influenza and that’s one of the other reasons that this is an important time during this pandemic because we are entering influenza season and that could absolutely take up some ICU bed capacity as well,” York said.
She urges all county residents to get their flu shot if they haven’t done so already.
Click here to find your region’s ICU capacity.