Merced County promoted to red tier COVID status by state, says supervisors chairman
Merced County officials say they received good news from the state on Wednesday, as they were given permission to move into the red tier for reopening the economy.
The tier change is effective immediately.
The county was the last in the state to move from the purple tier to red, which much of the central San Joaquin Valley is already in. Purple tier is the most restrictive COVID tier under the state rules.
The state gave the county permission on Wednesday after health officials last week asked for a second look at the COVID-19 infections being tallied, according to county Supervisor Daron McDaniel and Merced County spokesman Mike North.
A backlog on tests from two weeks ago caused an inaccurate swelling of the numbers in Merced County, according to Rebecca Nanyonjo-Kemp, director of public health.
“While the county had maintained red tier numbers for an appropriate amount of time to move into the State’s less-restrictive red tier, a sudden data dump of positive cases caused by delayed reporting from a laboratory artificially spiked the county’s numbers just prior to moving into the red tier two weeks ago,” according to Merced County press release.
“The data dump was processed as one day’s worth of cases instead of being spread out over more than two weeks.”
The Merced County Department of Public Health put more pressure on the state Tuesday after it was announced Merced County was to remain in the purple tier for another week.
“They had approved the adjudication request and yesterday I think was when really a lot of the work was underway because they were not going to advance the county to (red),” Nanyonjo-Kemp said. “That’s when we knew to be a bit more aggressive in our approach and that aggression paid off after several hours of coordination and communication.”
Nanyonjo-Kemp says hours were spent in discussions with the state trying to fix the mistake.
With the adjudication request being approved, Nanyonjo-Kemp says Merced County can now move forward with the rest of the state.
“We’re in this community. We know how upsetting it is to business owners,” Nanyonjo-Kemp said. “It affects us. We know how upsetting it is to the community. Just from the outside looking in, how would that look as a community resident, despite all this effort that has been put in for the last year and a half, to remain in purple for a mistake? You’ve got to call things what they are and I think a lot of things had to be discussed in order for us to move to the next level. That’s what took place and we’re happy that it ended up with this as a result of that.”
Under red Tier 2, which denotes “substantial” risk of viral spread in the county, restaurants that have been limited to only take-out, delivery or outdoor dining since January are allowed to begin serving diners in their indoor dining rooms, but with limitations including a cap of 25% capacity to allow for physical distancing, and requirements for staff to wear face coverings.
Fitness gyms and health clubs, which also had been nominally barred from indoor operations, can reopen their indoor facilities at up to 10% capacity.
“It took a number of phone calls to the state public health department and (Nanonjo-Kemp) led the charge,” said McDaniel. “She identified the problem from the beginning and she pursued it until it was fixed. It’s ridiculous that it took this long, but it got done. We knew this is where we should be and it hurt local businesses. Hopefully we can move forward and it won’t be long until we’re in the orange tier.”
To advance from the purple tier into the red, counties need to meet two key measures for two consecutive weeks:
- Have an average of fewer than 10 new confirmed coronavirus cases each day as a rate per 100,000 residents over the course of a week, and
- Achieving a rate of less than 8% of residents who are tested for coronavirus coming back with positive results.
- A third “health equity” metric requires that residents in economically and socially disadvantaged census tracts have a testing positivity rate under 8.1%. That goal is intended to ensure that lower-income neighborhoods or areas with limited access to health care are not being left behind more affluent areas in a county’s response to the pandemic.
As of today, Merced County case data shows 8.2 daily cases per 100,000 residents (qualifies for red tier) and a 4% positivity rate (qualifies for orange tier), according to Merced County.
Other notable changes for businesses in the red tier include allowing movie theaters to reopen at up to 25% of capacity or 100 people, whichever is fewer; museums and zoos can open indoor attractions at up to 25% capacity; and retail stores can expand indoor operations from 25% under purple Tier 1 to 50% in red Tier 2.
Among elements of business resumption or expansion are requirements for both staff and customers to wear face masks and practice physical distancing to prevent the spread of the virus.
“It’s good news and I’m happy we’re moving forward,” said Merced Mayor Matt Serratto. “We’re where we should have been a few weeks ago. We have to keep working and stay safe. We’ve got to get those vaccinations out. It’s great for our small businesses. It allows them to get to work and serving our community again.”
Merced County reports one new death
The Merced County Department of Public Health reported one new COVID-19 related death on Wednesday afternoon, bringing the total of fatalities to 450 since the start of the pandemic.
The most recent death was a man over the age of 65 who was known to have underlying health conditions.
On Wednesday, Merced County also reported 23 new COVID-19 confirmed cases, raising the total number of residents infected with the virus to 31,128 since the start of the pandemic.
There are 535 residents who are estimated to be currently infected by the virus.
The number of residents hospitalized in Merced County due to the coronavirus is 10 — with three people in the ICU.
According to the state, Merced County hospitals had 10 ICU beds remaining as of Wednesday.
Merced County has a positivity rate of 4%, indicating the level of people among those tested who had a positive result.
This story was originally published April 14, 2021 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Merced County promoted to red tier COVID status by state, says supervisors chairman."
