Sonoma County urges vaccinations as hospitalizations and deaths of unvaccinated residents ticks up

Sonoma County is imploring people to get vaccinated, while reporting five new COVID-19 deaths.

"That's the most we've reported in any single day since February," said Supervisor Chris Coursey, at a briefing Friday afternoon.

"We're not through this, despite all the progress we've made in our vaccination campaign, the pandemic is not over in Sonoma County- or elsewhere."

68 percent of eligible Sonoma County residents are fully vaccinated.

That leaves more than 100,000 people still in the wings, unprotected.

Four of the five who died in recent days were unvaccinated.

The other patient who died was over 90 years old and had with pre-existing health conditions.

44 people are admitted to hospitals, compared to an average of 10 on any given day last month.

13 patients are in ICU units, and all of them are unvaccinated.

"The numbers are trending in the wrong direction, we know how to end the pandemic," said Sonoma County Public Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase.

Mase said getting more people immunized would move the community toward herd immunity.

But vaccinations, free and widely available, have fallen off.

Friday, the county's largest clinic, located at the fairgrounds, was closed and empty at 3 pm.

Sonoma County has eased local public health restrictions, in accordance with state directives, but could restore them if COVID numbers keep climbing.

"We are following the data closely and we will be in close touch with our Board of Supervisors to see if we need to do more to protect the community," said Mase.

In the meantime?

"We encourage you, if you're not going to get vaccinated, to continue to wear your mask, practice social distancing, and avoid large crowds," urged Mase.

The uptick in numbers may tilt some people toward vaccination, but not all.

"Everybody's got to make their own choices and I made mine, I'm happy and safe so far," said Luis Castro, loading his Costco purchases in Santa Rosa Friday.

Castro, 45, lives in Windsor and works in construction.

His entire family is vaccinated, except him, even after his elderly mom had COVID and recovered.    

"I'm just living life, going about my day and not worrying about it too much," said Castro.

What would motivate him to get the shot?

"I don't know, I honestly don't know," he responded.

Despite 600,000 doses given, a quarter of eligible residents like Castro are still in the wings.

And unlike previous surges, variants are a bigger threat now.

68 cases of Delta variant have been confirmed in Sonoma County.

"I'd like to avoid the history we've seen of the course of COVID repeating itself," said Dr. Chad Krilich, Chief Medical Office for Providence Sonoma County.

Providence runs Santa Rosa Memorial, Petaluma Valley and Healdsburg Hospitals.

"We are experiencing about 50 percent of what we saw when we were at our worst," said Kilrich.

"But the difference is the patients are younger and they are unvaccinated."

Sonoma County's numbers are complicated by an outbreak at its largest homeless shelter.

The Sam Jones shelter in Santa Rosa has 47 people who are COVID positive and 20 tests still pending.

New shelter intakes are halted and the affected residents are quarantined.

It doesn't bode well in a county where case and positivity rates have doubled in a month.

"The good news is we're still half as bad-off as we were in January," said Krilich, "but the bad news is this is preventable so please get vaccinated."