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After an outbreak in Wuhan, China, the coronavirus has now spread all over the globe since it was first detected in December. The virus has killed thousands and continues to spread rapidly across the world. NSPR aims to bring you accurate and comprehensive coronavirus coverage in the North State. We want your questions and comments about the ongoing pandemic. Ask your questions in the form below. We hope by doing this we can quickly get important information to our community and help it from spreading here. 00000176-4e34-d3bc-a977-4f7c3a3a0000

Yuba, Sutter County Spokesman On COVID-19: ‘20 To 25 Cases A Day On Average’

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Sutter County has consistently been afflicted with among the highest caseloads in the region. Together with Yuba County, the two are mainly agricultural, with a few growing Capital region bedroom communities. The number of cases in both — 380 — is raising concerns among public health professionals. Like elsewhere in the North State, compliance with mask and social distancing guidelines is far from universal. 

To learn more about current trends and where this may lead, NSPR’s Marc Albert spoke Monday with Russ Brown, spokesman for Yuba and Sutter counties.

Here are highlights from their conversation. You can also listen at the top of the page.

Interview Highlights

On the current status of COVID-19 in Yuba-Sutter

Currently we have about 380 cases as of Sunday the 5th. We're seeing about anywhere from 20 to 25 cases a day on average. That's a significant increase over the past two to three weeks. The pace is really picking up and we had a death on the Fourth of July — it was somebody in their 40s. So that's concerning. That's our fifth death since this all began. 

On sources of the new cases

We are seeing sources of where these are happening the most. I mean, it's happening in a lot of different areas. But it's very common to see large gatherings as being the cause. Our tracers have been working diligently. For each case that comes in they talk to the people, they find out where they've been in contact with. A lot of times it's large family gatherings, it's group gatherings of friends. There have been some businesses. We've seen some of the COVID-19 cases come out of that. So it's across the board, but there are certain trends that we're seeing, especially those large gatherings. 

On concerns about Fourth of July gatherings

We think that we saw a little bit of a bump from the Memorial Day weekend, a month back. So these large events, these large holidays, do tend to gather crowds together. There was a fireworks display but they closed the park where the fireworks were shot off, they shot him higher in the sky. So supposedly you can stay at home and watch from the comfort of your home. So there were efforts to at least reduce those large gatherings but they still happen in block parties and such around the two counties. 

On whether Yuba and Sutter counties are on the state’s watch list

Yuba-Sutter County right now is not on the watch list, but we expect to be very, very soon. Because of the way we're trending, because of our numbers, meaning that the metrics that the state set up, we expect probably in the next few days, we will be on that list. And then you can only be on it a short time before the state imposes those kind of restrictions. So we're concerned about that. We are waiting to hear from the state. Our health team is really monitoring the numbers to see where they're going at same time and try to get our residents on board with adhering to all those safeguards that you need to put in place.

On keeping up with contact tracing as case counts rise

It gets more difficult as numbers rise, of course, because it's a very intense, it's a seven day a week program. We don't take any time off. And we are in the process of hiring more contact racers to handle the ever increasing workload. We're really working with our community to educate them, to have them to kind of step up and take precautions, but there's such a lag right now between testing and the numbers. It's really hard to get a clear picture. It used to be a person can get in the same day to get tested. Now they have to wait two or three or four days to get tested. And it also used to be that they get the results in three days. But now we're seeing about seven days because the labs are really getting inundated.

On whether people are taking the spread of the virus seriously or not

We have a community that kind of split right down the middle. I mean, we see half is really adhering, really concerned, really honoring the social distancing, wearing the facial coverings. And then we have some that just feel like they don't need to, that it's not a problem. They'll argue against the science. Which is frustrating to us, of course, because we're not doing things for political reasons. We're doing it according to the health, according to the science. That's the information that we gather and that's the information we return to the community. So it's very frustrating to us to see people arguing it on a political basis. 

And we understand rights, we understand that nobody likes wearing a facial covering, nobody likes to get together with friends but maintain the distance. But that's, unfortunately, what it's going to take during this time — in a time where there's no vaccine yet. We feel like there will be at some point, but right now there isn't. And so those precautions are so important. They're so vital. It's one of those things that everybody has to get on board. 

It's interesting because as everybody knows, the people wearing the facial coverings are protecting others from the possibility that they have, that the people wearing the facial coverings has COVID-19, just in case, we don't know. I wear mine when I go out. I feel like I'm healthy. I feel like I'm not sick, but I don't know. I don't know what I came in contact with the last three or four days before that. So I wear my facial covering. And those that feel like they don't need to, they don't wear one and yet they're putting everybody else at risk in case they do. 

On the importance of face coverings

We very much believe in the science of facial coverings. People all the time now argue against the science of facial coverings, but they do stop or I should say, slow the spread. Nothing is 100%. We understand that. But it greatly reduces the possibility of spread of COVID-19. But you're right, more people have to get involved. They have to participate in wearing facial coverings for this to be really effective, to really slow the spread of COVID-19.

On Yuba-Sutter hospital capacity

Right now we're still OK. But our problem is that the hospital beds have been filling up on a fairly consistent basis. It used to be that we'd have one case, zero case, two cases, one case. I mean, that's where we were for months, and suddenly we're seeing two cases, six cases, eight cases and now we have 14 people in the hospital currently, with COVID-19. We still have bed space there. We have one hospital serving the two counties. But at this pace, you will see the hospital overwhelmed in its ability to really properly treat people with COVID-19.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Click the “play” button to listen to the entire interview.