San Joaquin County Remains In Purple Tier While Stanislaus Prepares To Jump To Red
STOCKTON (CBS13) — Businesses in San Joaquin County remained in the purple tier Tuesday, despite anticipating a jump into the red tier this week.
"We are all vaccinated, so we are really ready," said Kathy Swanson.
Swanson is eager to eat at one of her favorite restaurants in Stockton. For now, she's still ordering to-go as the county remains in the state's most restrictive tier.
It's a disappointment for Angelina's Spaghetti House manager Richard Garcia, who was hoping to get the green light to move into the red tier.
"We were anticipating, we thought it was going to happen. It actually didn't so it really is a downer," he said.
CBS13 is learning in the past 24 hours, hospitals in San Joaquin County have reported a 29% increase in hospitalizations. But in neighboring Stanislaus County, numbers are getting better.
A month ago the county's case rate was sitting at roughly 29 new cases per 100,00 people. Now that number has dropped to just less than 12 out of 100,000. The positivity rate is now just under 5% whereas last month it was sitting at 9%. Hospitalizations are also decreasing, moving down from 167 to 108.
Stanislaus County tells CBS13 its slow progress will now allow the county to move up in tiers as soon as next week as long as numbers don't go up.
"We have been improving just not fast enough," said Kamlesh Kaur with Stanislaus County.
Despite the current situation in Garcia's county, he's staying positive and so are his customers.
"Numbers have been getting better and better it's just taking a long time," he said.
"I was hoping it would happen but hopefully soon," Swanson said.