COVID TESTING & VACCINE INFO: For more information on COVID-19 vaccines, testing, and masking, contact the Mendocino County Public Health COVID19 Call Center at (707) 472-2759 or visit their website here. You can read our ongoing coverage of the pandemic here, and find the current county COVID-19 data here.
MENDOCINO Co., 6/17/20 — A set of Ukiah High graduation celebrations and a church services have been found to be the cause of a spike in COVID cases in Mendocino County. Within the past week eight cases can be traced to graduation parties, and four to a church service — these conclusions were arrived at after careful contact tracing in which people are interviewed concerning their recent contacts and a site of infection is tracked down. Contact tracing and case investigation remain essential in finding such small outbreaks, conducting testing, isolating infected people, and quarantining the potentially infected, before the outbreak can spread further into the population.
As a result this new spike, Mendocino Public Health conducted additional testing. Testing is still avaliable at the fairgrounds in Ukiah, see above for details.
Here are more details in a press release from Public Health:
6.17.20-Press-Release-6-New-CasesTO: MENDOCINO COUNTY NEWS MEDIA FR: MENDOCINO COUNTY EXECUTIVE OFFICE
Ukiah, California: June 17, 2020
Health Officer Announces 6 New COVID-19 Cases in Ukiah Area End of School Year Gatherings Major Contributor to Rise in Ukiah Area Cases
Today Mendocino County Health Officer Dr. Noemi Doohan confirmed 6 new COVID-19 cases in the Ukiah Valley region. Four of the 6 cases are teenagers. Eight of the new cases have been traced back to two end of school year/graduation related gatherings in Ukiah. The new cases today brings Mendocino County’s case count to 53 (19 isolated, 1 hospitalized in the ICU; 33 recovered). In addition, 4 cases over the past week have been linked to in-person church services in the Ukiah area.
In response to this spike in positive cases, Mendocino County Public Health will be doing outbreak testing at the Public Health Building, 1120 South Dora Street in Ukiah today, Wednesday, June 17, from 4:30pm – 7:00pm and tomorrow, Thursday, June 18, from 7:00am – 10:00am. If you have been notified by Public Health that you have been exposed to COVID-19 or have been to a graduation/end of school year gathering or in- person church service in the Ukiah area in the past 10 days please stop by and get tested.
Mendocino County is experiencing a spike in cases for individuals under the age of 35, which now makes up 43% of cases. In addition, the case that was recently in the ICU was in the 19-35 age group. The end of the school year, graduation and the start of summer is often a time to celebrate and hold large gatherings. All gatherings including those in homes, parks and community spaces are not allowed and are high-risk for the spread of COVID-19. Group activities are limited to members of the same household or a Social Bubble which means a stable group of 12 individuals who form either a Household Support Unit, a Childcare Unit, or a Children’s Extracurricular Activity Unit (Please refer to Mendocino County’s infographic for social bubbles: https://www.mendocinocounty.org/home/showdocument?id=35704).
To help our community stay safe, slow the spread of COVID-19 and continue reopening, everyone, including teens and young adults, should avoid the three C’s:
• Confined spaces – especially with poor ventilation. Outdoors in better than indoors.
• Crowds and gatherings – the more people the higher the risk.
501 Low Gap Rd, Rm 1010 Office: 707-463-4441 Ukiah CA 95482-3734 Fax: 707-463-5649
• Close contact – staying further apart is safer than being close together.
Every resident can take simple steps to reduce their risk of COVID-19 by washing hands often, wearing a cloth face covering around others, avoid touching your face, avoid sharing food, drinks, toys, sports equipment, keep interactions with others outside of your home or social bubble short and give yourself space from others (6ft).
As a reminder to parents, Mendocino County and the cities of Fort Bragg and Ukiah have Social Host Ordinances which state parents or guardians are responsible for parties at their homes even if the parents/guardians are absent during the event. Parents/guardians are liable for what transpires at the party in their absence.
Public Health recommends individuals who have recently been to a large gatherings, in- person church service or protest to schedule an appointment for surveillance testing at OptumServe in Ukiah. To make an appointment go online to lhi.care/covidtesting or call 888-634-1123. Our local testing location is at the Empire Fairgrounds in Ukiah and is open Tuesday – Saturday from 7am – 7pm. OptumServe is for those without symptoms. If you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms please contact your primary care physician at your local clinic or hospital for testing.
For more on COVID-19: www.mendocinocounty.org Call Center: (707) 234-6052 or email [email protected] The call center is open Monday-Friday from 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
If you witness a loved one or good friend being emotionally abused, day after day, week after week, do you just keep your thoughts to yourself? Do you pretend it’s not happening? It is it moral to just ignore the obvious harm? Or do you intervene, and stop the abuser?
Right now, Doohan and her fellow “experts” up the command chain and across the country are doing just that: abusing our loved ones and friends. They are terrorizing vulnerable people, lambasting those who have struggled through the worst three or four months of all of our lives. We cooperated to “Flatten the Curve.” Then the goalpost was moved, and we were told our punishment must continue.
Do we just ignore that Doohan and fellow “experts” ARE those abusers of loved ones and good friends? Do we just “comply” because they claim to have “authority”? Is it moral to watch individuals, families, communities be emotionally and economically destroyed by this? OR DO WE PUT AN END TO IT?
Doohan claims to be a medical doctor, and while she may have the pieces of paper establishing that, it seems she is willfully ignoring the catastrophic psychological effects her “orders” and shaming are having on most of us. Is she unaware of these effects? How could she not be, since so many experts of a different sort, both psychologists and psychiatrists, are pointing out what these lockdown/”social distancing”/”face coverings” “orders” have done and continue to do to tens of millions? Surely she is aware of the hard facts that COVID-19 simply is not a virus that will kill millions. Why continue the charade of it being an alleged “apocalypse” if we don’t do exactly as we are told? At this point, it’s very clear that the possibly-irreparable harm to people’s emotional health greatly outweighs the real, bonafide, scientifically-valid worst case scenario of COVID-19. And with minimal infection control measures, that worst case scenario isn’t even in play.
Is her agenda naive? Is her agenda evil? Her further actions will tell.
Not one death in Mendocino County due to COVID-19, and it’s likely there won’t be. And less than 100 TOTAL cases of infection?! Seriously? You still pretend this is the Black Plague without treatment?
Is she listening to us? Is the “leadership” of this County listening to use? What will it take to make them listen to us?
Are we to just watch our families be injured, sometimes gravely, by this continued “The virus! The virus! Do as we say or else!” bovine excrement? How much more are we expected to just “take”?
Those who are evil generally do not stop, until they are stopped. I hope the “experts” dictating to us like any Soviet tin-god bureaucrat choose not to be evil.