Alternate Care Site at Redwood Acres will be dismantled

Nine new cases of COVID-19 were reported today, and one previously reported case has been determined through a confirmatory PCR test to be negative and has been removed from the count. The total number of county residents who have tested positive now stands at 3,903.  

Humboldt County Public Health and other approved local vaccinators have administered 98,226 doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccine data on the Humboldt County Data Dashboard has been updated. Some highlights include:

60,462 Humboldt County residents have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, meaning they have some protection against the virus. That represents 45% of the total population and 54% of the county’s population age 16 and older who currently qualify for vaccination.About 37% of residents 16 and over are fully vaccinated, and 31% of the county’s total population is fully vaccinated.70% of county residents age 65 and older are fully vaccinated. Nearly 1 in 5 residents in the 20 to 29 age group — which represents the largest number of local cases — is fully vaccinated.  

Public Health will hold a Johnson & Johnson vaccination clinic for county residents age 18 and older at the Rio Dell Volunteer Fire Department (50 Center St.) tomorrow, Thursday, from 10 a.m. to noon and 1 to 3 p.m. Sign up in advance at MyTurn.ca.gov.

Many local pharmacies are also offering vaccination. To streamline the scheduling process and eliminate the need to check multiple websites, the federal government developed a single website to check vaccine availability at all participating pharmacies. Please note that the website’s search function defaults to a 25-mile radius. To view more local options, expand the search to 50 miles when prompted to enter a ZIP code. Go to vaccines.gov to sign up.  

Beginning today, vaccines.gov will replace the list of participating pharmacies in daily news releases.  

The Humboldt County Emergency Operations Center will dismantle the Alternate Care Site (ACS) at Redwood Acres. The site was established early in the pandemic to handle a surge in hospitalizations and, if needed, could have treated up to 90 COVID-19-positive patients. 

Emergency Services Manager Ryan Derby said the ACS was created out of an abundance of caution in an effort to preserve the local health care system. “We’re grateful it was there during some of the most uncertain times of the pandemic, but we now have a better grip on hospital capacity as it relates to this virus,” Derby said. “Due to the work of local health care providers to increase internal capacity, along with advanced planning, we feel it is safe and responsible to fully demobilize the ACS.”