Sonoma County health officer asking California officials to allow the county to reopen more businesses

Sonoma County Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase is expected on Wednesday to ask state public health officials to recalculate local indicators of coronavirus spread using thousands of unreported negative COVID-19 test results of area residents, a request that if granted likely would enable more county businesses to reopen and expand operations.

Mase told the county Board of Supervisors in a virtual Tuesday meeting that commercial laboratories that are processing an undetermined number of countywide virus tests daily have not been submitting their results to the state.

She wants to take advantage of a state rule that allows California counties to use an exception to advance in the state’s four-part reopening process for showing a significant decrease in overall COVID-19 test positivity rates, even if the rate of virus transmission per 100,000 residents doesn’t qualify a county to move to a less restrictive stage.

The virus spread benchmark showing average daily new infections is the one among three metrics the state uses to judge pandemic progress that has stymied the county.

Since late August when state officials launched the reopening regimen for the 58 counties, Sonoma County’s rampant virus transmission has kept it in the bottom reopening stage, which carries the stiffest business restrictions. For example, restaurants, wineries and breweries have been precluded from serving food and beverages indoors and on public school campuses have remained closed.

State officials reassess weekly progress of counties’ efforts to control the virus. Sonoma is the only one of the nine-county Bay Area still stuck in the most restrictive reopening tier. Pressure has been building in the local business community for even minimal progress in further reopening, as months of the ongoing pandemic have caused a severe financial toll, forcing layoffs and closures.

Sonoma County’s current COVID-19 transmission rate is 11.5 new daily cases per 100,000 people. The overall test positivity rate is 5% and the share of positive tests in low-income neighborhoods stands at 7%. Both positivity rates are below the 8% mark needed to move from the “purple” stage to the less restrictive “red” reopening tier. However, the state’s transmission rate threshold for advancement is 7 or less daily infections per 100,000 residents.

But Mase said Tuesday that the additional test results of county residents processed at private labs, if included, would reduce both of this week’s test positivity metrics below 5% of total virus tests. Under a somewhat complicated and confusing set of state reopening rules, that would be sufficient for reopening advancement even with the high level of coronavirus transmission in the county.

If state public health officials approve the waiver request this week from Mase, it wouldn’t take effect until next Tuesday. After that, as long as the county maintained the reduced test positivity levels for two more weeks, then it would officially advance to the “red” stage and more businesses could resume operations and others like restaurants would be able to open indoors with limits.

Mase acknowledged that moving forward with more community reopening could be challenging at a time when the contagion is resurging across much of California and the country. Sonoma County reported three more virus-related deaths on Tuesday, increasing the death toll to 149 since the pandemic disease emerged here in March.

Also Tuesday, state public health officials announced that another wave of new coronavirus cases statewide is essentially preventing counties from further reopening, and causing some to backslide and reinstate business restrictions.

For instance, Sacramento, San Diego and Stanislaus counties fell back to the most restrictive reopening stage to join Sonoma and a few other locales. Meanwhile, five counties, including the Bay Area’s Contra Costa County, slipped a step back into the “red,” or second most restrictive stage.

In order to reopen more businesses and public venues and keep them operating, Mase said county residents need to focus on continuing “mitigation measures,” which means wearing masks in public and staying at least 6 feet apart from those other than immediate family. “The things we’ve been talking about from Day One.”

Meanwhile, the three latest Sonoma County residents — two men and a woman — to die from complications of COVID-19 each were older than 64. However, they were not residents of skilled nursing centers or residential care homes, local epicenters of deadly virus outbreaks.

To date, 114 of the 149 local virus-related fatalities involve residents of nursing and residential care homes for the elderly.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.