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Another COVID Holiday: Is California in a Better Place this Year? Not in Humboldt.

The holidays are here and people are ready to gather, hug and feast. But is California in a better place this year when it comes to COVID-19?

Last year, as Thanksgiving approached, infections were creeping up, culminating in a brutal winter surge, and the governor implemented an emergency curfew to slow the spread of the virus.

Overall the state as a whole is now doing better than a year ago, before vaccines were available. But a closer look at each county shows that “better” isn’t the case for all: At least 18 counties have more hospitalized COVID-19 patients today than they did this time last year. Another five have just as many.

The vast majority of the ones faring worse are in the Central Valley and rural Northern California, which are still recovering from bad summer surges. Humboldt, Madera and Lassen counties have the biggest year-over-year increases. In Madera, the seven-day average stood at 32 hospitalized patients on Nov. 21, compared to 13 a year ago. Humboldt had 11 hospitalizations on Nov. 21 compared to three on the same date last year.

It’s a different — and far better — situation in California’s urban counties. Of the state’s 10 most populous counties, all except Fresno have fewer COVID patients in the hospital today than a year ago.

Los Angeles, Alameda and Contra Costa counties are reporting less than half of the COVID-19 hospitalizations of last year. San Diego, Orange, Riverside, Santa Clara, San Bernardino and Sacramento counties have about 30 percent less.

Last year’s winter surge was harsh for most of the state. But for some counties — including Butte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Shasta and Placer — this summer and fall were even worse. Some saw more patients hospitalized in summer and fall than they did last winter.

In the Central Valley some local hospitals are still strained. And experts say that’s a dangerous situation going into the holidays when another wave of cases is expected.

“We hope this surge, which we’re just trending down from now, is an indication that hopefully we won’t have another surge. But an increase in cases wouldn’t be terribly unlikely,” said Lisa Almaguer, communications director at Butte County Public Health.

“In June or July, we literally only had four COVID positive patients in the hospital and were in a bit of a celebratory

Special Edition

Photo courtesy of Humboldt Craft Spirits Bottles of Humboldt Craft Spirits’ Sugar Bear edition of its Little River Gin, which uses boughs from the Capitol Christmas tree culled from Six Rivers National Forest. For each bottle sold, $1 goes to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. Read more at www. northcoastjournal.com. POSTED 11.23.21.

mood. But that quickly changed.”

At Kaweah Health Medical Center in Visalia, the seat of Tulare County, 73 COVID-19 infected patients were being treated as of Nov. 16. Although the number is high, Chief Executive Officer Gary Herbst said it is a welcome relief from the 100-plus infected patients hospitalized there since late summer.

“The Delta variant has been much more contagious, a bit more severe, where we are seeing more patients require critical care, require significant oxygen, unfortunately,” Herbst said. “In June or July, we literally only had four COVID positive patients in the hospital and were in a bit of a celebratory mood. But that quickly changed in August as we saw our numbers start increasing exponentially.” — Ana B. Ibarra and Hannah Getahun of CalMatters POSTED 11.23.21 Read the full story online.

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No Confidence Vote: The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 — with supervisors Rex Bohn, Michelle Bushnell and Virginia Bass in favor and Steve Madrone and Mike Wilson dissenting — to cast a vote of no confidence in the job performance of elected Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez during a Nov. 22 special session. POSTED 11.23.21 Payroll Problems: Humboldt County employees who receive their checks via direct deposit did not get paid on schedule Nov. 19 due to a payroll error that staff worked through the night to remedy, manually inputting all the information needed to issue paychecks.

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Decommissioned: PG&E’s Humboldt Nuclear Power Plant reactor site was deemed fully cleaned up by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Nov. 18. PG&E is required to maintain the area above Buhne Point, where spent fuel is stored until the fuel is removed.

POSTED 11.18.21

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POSTED 11.19.21

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Digitally Speaking They Said It

The number of Humboldt County high school football teams — the Cubs at South Fork and the Tigers at Arcata High — that had to give up a championship bid due to an outbreak of COVID-19. “This grant will help us rebuild an upgraded facility to better serve the community now and into the future and leaves us better positioned to respond in times of disaster.”

— Food for People Executive Director Anne Holcomb on the nonprofit receiving a $50,000 donation from the Simpson Family Fund-Green Diamond Resource Company to help rebuild its facility. POSTED 11.23.21

Comment of the Week

“Someone needs to buy it! Or a group of someone’s.”

— Brittany Evans commenting on the Journal’s Facebook page about Fortuna icon Bob’s Footlong shuttering its doors after 72 years of slinging milkshakes, burgers, dogs and fries.