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In the final Humboldt County Joint Information Center questions and answers this year, Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman answers questions about the apparently most contagious coronavirus variant, the rate at which vaccines are being administered in Humboldt and Mais.
Stay tuned at the end of the video to see Public Health officials wish everyone a happy new year.
Video above, approximate transcript below.
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The North Coast News asks: “With news of a new coronavirus variant arriving from the UK to the United States, is the new variant being tested in Humboldt County? Are current testing methods able to detect it, and if so, will the county be releasing data when the variant is discovered here? ”
Yes, a very good question. Something that has been on my mind a lot for the past few days. We know that this is not just in the US, but in California. There are reports from San Diego that four cases were detected there. It’s in several states in the United States, so we’re looking at local tests for that.
There are tests available and when I have updates on that, I will let you know.
North Coast News asks: “The Washington Post reported yesterday that about 20% of nationally distributed coronavirus vaccines were actually administered. Do these figures also reflect Humboldt County? Why, or why are the numbers not different? ”
I would say that our numbers here are probably much higher than that. We currently have about 5,500 vaccines in Humboldt County. The vast majority of them go to the St. Joseph hospital system. They have just over 2,000 of them. And they have managed it as fast as they can.
They also run a hospital; they are treating the vast majority of COVID patients in Humboldt County. They went through about 1,200 of them, so over 50% of their 2,000.
In addition, other hospitals have gone through several thousand more, so I think it is safe to say that we are very close to 50% of the vaccine we have in the county has already been administered and we are working hard to get through the rest of it as soon as possible.
North Coast News asks, “Are there any local statistics on the mental health impacts the pandemic has caused?”
That is a really great question. I must say that I don’t have the answer to that. I would suspect that the Department of Health and Human Services could, so I would forward the question to them.