Frankovich and Honsal did not speak to AP but Bass, Alder Bay, Ryan Rice featured in COVID 19 article

Remarks attributed to Dr. Teresa Frankovich and Sheriff William Honsal in the article are from the videos. Alder Bay says first positive case was a worker but "authorities will not say how that worker got infected.

Humboldt County on California’s North Coast was among the first in the state to get the governor's green light to open up restaurants and stores after a two-month statewide coronavirus lockdown.

With only about 50 cases confirmed in the whole month of April in the county of 130,000, many breathed a sigh of relief that they'd survived the worst of it. Soon, though, county officials saw a worrisome trend: nearly 30 new cases in a two-week period and the first two deaths.

That has prompted Humboldt County officials to take a more cautious approach to reopening, in what may be a harbinger of the “toggle switch" local officials are likely to negotiate as they emerge from the lockdown.

“We have to recognize that due to some pretty serious increases that we’ve seen in cases and recently, two deaths, that it’s prudent to take a really careful approach and open up things a little more slowly than we’d really like to,” said Supervisor Virginia Bass, whose district includes Eureka, the county's biggest city with 27,000 people."

Businesses are required to submit a health and safety plan and meet a list of requirements before they are certified to reopen. In a video released this week, Humboldt County Health Officer Teresa Frankovich said the county will continue accepting applications but may need to slow down certifications to “match what is happening on the ground.”

Neither Frankovich or Honsal responded to interview requests from The Associated Press.

Read the rest of the article:

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/In-rural-California-community-officials-slow-15290904.php