Sacramento County Leads The State In COVID Infection Rate
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - Sacramento County is now leading the state in COVID infection rates.
The area has the highest infection rate per 100,000 people of any big city in the state, and this drastic increase happened in just the last 30 days.
Vaccination clinics like one at Sacramento's McClatchy High School Tuesday are not slowing down their efforts-partnering with the county to increase vaccination rates
"We are thrilled for everyone who has gotten the vaccine, but the work still isn't done yet. As long as we have a significant population of people unvaccinated then the virus still has the potential to spread. We are going to do everything we can, going as long as we need to," said Susan Sivils, lead nurse Sacramento Unified School District.
Typically, clinics like this have several hundred vaccines available to give out, but today, nurse Susan Sivils is worried they wouldn't even reach triple-digit distribution.
"It is definitely a problem. Part of it is lack of access to care, lack of access to good information, and some of it is experiences that they may have had," she said.
Three months after vaccinations became widely available, there are some groups still lagging. CBS13 wanted to know what communities have the highest rate of infection. According to county data, Hispanic and Black populations make up nearly half of all new cases in Sacramento in the last 30 days. In a presentation Tuesday, Public Health Officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye presented the new numbers, emphasizing the need for outreach.
"It is why our biggest push is to continue with the vaccination, especially in the communities that have lower vaccination rates," said Kasirye.
In just the last month, Kasirye explained people ages 18-49 years old account for 62 percent of COVID cases. To stop the spike, she says community outreach organizations are now going door to door to try and get people vaccinated.
"It is that kind of level of outreach that needs to be done in order for us to get especially to the underserved communities and work to remove the barriers," she said.
The infection rate in the county is more than double the state's average at 174 cases a day on average. While the increase is far from peak numbers, it is still a concern for doctors.
"Every single case that occurs in an unvaccinated individual the virus is multiplying wildly out of control as this increases the risk of the evolution of more variants," said UC Davis Infectious Disease expert Dr. Dean Blumberg.
Dr. Kasirye explained the death rate has not seen an increase. She explained that could change, saying it typically takes about two weeks after a spike in cases to see an increase in deaths.