Placer County COVID-19 Digest

Placer County was ground zero for the COVID culture wars. The Sacramento Bee examines how the county’s approach worked out.

On Feb. 16, California officials said that the state’s long-range plan for COVID-19 will focus on flexible responses to future variants and shift from an emergency mindset into one that assumes coexistence with the virus.

As the omicron COVID-19 variant continues to spread through California, many are using over-the-counter testing kits. If you test positive, what do you do with your result?

With the Omicron variant surging throughout Placer County, the county extended its late summer health warning, encouraging residents to wear high-quality masks and to take other measures to avoid overtaxing the hospitals.

U.S. health officials have lowered isolation restrictions from 10 to five days for patients with coronavirus. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said the guidance reflects evidence that people are most infectious two days before and three days after symptoms develop.

Dr. Rob Oldham, Placer County’s top health official, has made it clear that there’s no intention for Placer County to enforce a mask mandate due to the fact there’s been no enforcement direction from the state.

Two counties have asked for religious and personal belief exemptions for the student COVID-19 vaccination mandate to stay valid when the mandate takes place next year.

City officials in Rocklin have approved an urgency ordinance to help restaurants and bars extend outdoor dining infrastructure through the holidays. The ordinance creates a permit process and streamlines regulations.

The Rocklin City Council voted unanimously to approve a resolution to streamline the permitting approval process for permanent outdoor-dining structures. The council is also looking to extend the temporary outdoor dining program, which is scheduled to end on Nov. 1.

California has some of the most extensive workplace vaccine requirements in the nation, but they don’t cover every industry. Some advocates say the state should expand its vaccine mandates to certain industries.

A Harvard University study found evidence linking smoke from wildfires in California, Oregon and Washington in 2020 to rising COVID cases and deaths. They said that fine particulate matter acts as a vehicle for spreading infection and makes existing cases worse.

The website is posting a weekly Friday wrap-up of COVID-19 statistics for counties around Lake Tahoe.

At Monday’s Auburn City Council meeting, talk revolved around potential uses for the funds that Auburn will get from the American Rescue Plan Act, allocated by the feds to help cities recoup from pandemic-related losses.

Around Lake Tahoe and its surrounding communities, business owners are feeling the labor shortage pinch, with help wanted ads unanswered and interviews unattended.

Low-income Californians enrolled in Medi-Cal have been vaccinated at far lower rates than the overall population. About 45 percent of eligible Medi-Cal enrollees had received at least one dose as of July 18, compared to about 70 percent of all eligible Californians, state officials said.

As the number of cases of COVID begin to rise in California again, a new UC Davis study shows that people have become desensitized and disinterested in following public health guidelines. The UC Davis researchers hopes their study can help with public outreach before COVID-19 again reaches crisis levels.

As the economy in California reopens, businesses are finding it difficult to attract employees. And that’s certainly the case in Nevada and Placer counties, which have some of the lowest unemployment rates in the state.

Vaccine hesitancy among Hispanic and Black Americans has been explored, but Sutter Health is finding other populations that show reluctance to get the COVID-19 shots.

While the federal government has loosened mask mandates, California Health officials announced Monday that masks will be required indoors until June 15.

As the snow-sports season comes to a close, resort officials reflect on how they fared during the pandemic.

Placer County launched a study to better understand local COVID-19 infection rates among residents. Stanford University School of Medicine investigators tested blood samples from 2,035 residents between October 2020 and March 2021 for COVID-19 antibodies.