SALINAS – Monterey County has reached an all-time high in COVID-19 case rates with a peak of 108.6 per 100,000, outpacing the last record set in January 2021 of 107.8 per 100,000. Assistant Director of Public Health Kristy Michie said the county has not yet seen the worst.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve hit the crest yet,” said Michie at the Monterey County media briefing Wednesday. “We haven’t seen locally our numbers slowing down, so I think that they are increasing.”
Michie said that looking at what happened in New York and other places, the county will probably see high levels of COVID-19 for the next couple of weeks.
Monterey County’s current COVID-19 test positivity rate is 19.3%, and there are 103 people hospitalized who have tested positive for the virus. Last week, the case rate was 47 per 100,000, the test positivity rate 9.8%, and there were 63 hospitalizations. For the week of Jan. 3, the case rate was 10 per 100,000, the test positivity rate was 3.7%, and 50 people were hospitalized with COVID-19.
“The good news is that while our case rates are at record high levels, our hospitalizations are really at about half of where they were during last winter’s surge so that’s really great news and our deaths are less than a quarter of where we were last winter during the surge,” said Michie.
The high case rate reflects how prevalent COVID-19 is in Monterey County communities right now and how efficient the omicron variant is spreading among the population.
But the comparatively low hospitalization and death rate points to several factors including the number of those who are vaccinated in Monterey County. According to the California Immunization Registry, 81% of those five years of age and older eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine have received at least one dose and 72% of those eligible are fully vaccinated.
Michie said the county continues to make progress on vaccinations and booster uptake, particularly in those 50 years of age and older.
To help stem the tide of COVID-19 infections people need to continue with the measures taken over the past two years of the pandemic to protect themselves, their families and the community at large including getting vaccinated, receiving a booster, wearing face coverings over the nose and mouth, staying home when sick, and getting tested when possible health officials say.
“The singular most important thing people can do is to get vaccinated,” said Michie. “Vaccines are proven to reduce hospitalizations and death.”
For information on public testing and vaccination sites in Monterey County, visit MontereyCountyVaccines.com.
Source: www.mercurynews.com