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With three people in the hospital, Del Norte County is beginning to see COVID-19 “the way other people have been seeing it for awhile,” its public health officer said Tuesday.

In his report to the Board of Supervisors, Dr. Warren Rehwaldt said the volume of active cases has increased five fold in the community and, while a vaccination program is forthcoming, Del Norte County will only see about 420 doses to start with.

Following Rehwaldt’s report, county supervisors unanimously approved a $5,300 budget transfer to the Public Health Branch for an ultra cold freezer to house the COVID-19 vaccine locally.

Though Del Norte is likely to receive a small number of doses — both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are two-dose regimens — there will be enough to get the community’s frontline healthcare workers at the hospital and at Crescent City’s skilled nursing facility vaccinated, Rehwaldt said.

Public Health also wants those first doses to go to medical staff at Pelican Bay State Prison, he told supervisors.

“We don’t want to have all those people getting sick while they’re trying to manage an outbreak at that facility,” Rehwaldt said.

There are currently 53 active COVID-19 cases among Pelican Bay State Prison inmates, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s COVID-19 tracking web page.

At the prison, there are currently 15 employees with active cases as of Monday, according to CDCR’s COVID-19 Employee Status web page.

On Monday, the Del Norte County Public Health Branch reported that there were 63 new cases identified since the COVID-19 Information Hub was updated on Friday. Del Norte County had 136 active cases as of Monday, according to Public Health.

Del Norte County is in the most restrictive purple tier on California’s Blueprint For A Safer Economy. This status indicates that COVID-19 transmission is widespread in the community. As a result, most businesses in the county, including restaurants, can only operate outdoors. Retailers can operate at 25 percent capacity.

Rehwaldt said the local increase in COVID-19 infection is reflective of what’s going on around the state and the nation.

“It's the marker of the fall surge everyone’s been worried about,” he said. “It’s impacted our department in a very big way. Nursing staff has had to work extraordinarily hard.”

Rehwaldt’s report to the Board of Supervisors comes after he released a letter to the community regarding the state’s regional approach to issuing stay-at-home orders based on the capacity of intensive care unit beds. In his letter, he noted that because their remaining ICU bed capacity was less than 15 percent of the total available, counties in California’s southern half are under the stay-at-home order.

Northern California is not under a stay-at-home order currently, Rehwaldt said.

In response to Supervisor Roger Gitlin, who erroneously said there were no new hospitalizations, Rehwaldt said having three people admitted to the hospital is new for Del Norte County, but it’s not unexpected.

“We haven’t had multiple admissions in one day,” he said. “It’s definitely changed.”

Gitlin, correctly pointing out there were no new deaths from COVID-19 reported in Del Norte County and claiming that recovery time from the disease appears to be shorter than the 10-day quarantine period, continued to push for relaxing safety restrictions on local restaurants.

Gitlin and his colleague, District 5 Supervisor Bob Berkowitz, also asked Rehwaldt why patrons are unable to dine in Del Norte County restaurants but can travel to Curry County to eat out.

“People are listening to you and they are staying home and that has some unintended consequences as people protect themselves from lethality, or less lethality, of COVID-19,” Gitlin said, asking if Del Norte could get special consideration from the state because it’s on the border with Oregon. “There are businesses that are tragically going under. I can only refer you to look around. A major restaurant has gone from 40 employees down to three and they’re going out of business. They’re not going to make it and that’s a form of lethality.”

Rehwaldt noted that having to comply with all the constraints that comes with being in the purple tier on the state’s Blueprint is difficult. However, the state taking a regional approach to implementing further safety measures is a concession, he said.

“There’s been some discussion at various levels about modifying the tier status to accommodate restaurant owners and other businesses,” Rehwaldt told Gitlin. “The problem is when you’re in the middle of what appears to be a surge it’s hard to make those kinds of calls. I don’t think we’re going to get any special categorization for Del Norte County by virtue of being on the border.”

In Curry County, five new COVID-19 cases were identified from Curry Health Network and Sutter Health Lab on Monday. That brings the total of active cases in Curry County to 55, according to Curry County Public Health.

According to the Oregon Health Authority, Curry County is at high risk for COVID-19 infection. This is based on a four tiered system Oregon has implemented for deciding at what level businesses and activities can operate ranging from lower to extreme.

As a result, restaurants in Curry County can offer indoor dining at 25 percent of their maximum capacity or 50 people whichever is smaller. Outdoor dining is allowed for 75 people maximum.

In response to Gitlin’s statements, District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard said it’s not Rehwaldt’s job to petition the state of California to make special exemptions for Del Norte County.

“It’s Dr. Rehwaldt’s job under state mandates to implement them the best he can under these restrictions,” Howard said. “It’s our job to spread that word in Sacramento and get their ear to have some of these restrictions that are very heavy burdens on our economy here and on our children.”

Howard asked Board Chair Gerry Hemmingsen to place an item on the January agenda to hve a discussion about how COVID-19 has impacted Del Norte County’s children and businesses.

Following Rehwaldt’s report, supervisors heard from District 2 Assemblyman Jim Wood, who said he was disappointed in the small number of vaccine doses Del Norte is expected to receive. California is expected to receive 327,000 doses in the vaccine’s first grouping, Wood told supervisors.

Wood said he and State Sen. Mike McGuire are concerned about COVID-19’s impact to healthcare systems in their districts.

“Del Norte County does not have the ICU capacity Oakland or San Francisco or Los Angeles does,” Wood said. “A few cases in the ICU will quickly overwhelm the healthcare system in Del Norte County.”

Wood said he and McGuire are also pushing for more federal stimulus money to counties in their district. Larger jurisdictions received more than $500,000, while Del Norte and other smaller counties had to “fight tooth and nail to get resources.”

“Smaller counties like Del Norte struggled to get a proportional share for that,” he said. “That’s been a real sore spot for me and the senator as well.”

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