County of Ventura COVID-19 update for May 7 — Stay Well VC – Safely Reopening Ventura County

VENTURA COUNTY — Good Evening, Here’s your daily update from the County of Ventura.

Stay Well VCSafely Reopening Ventura County

The County of Ventura has reached an important milestone for our community, County and our local economy. The Public Health Officer announced today a new modified Stay Well VC Health Order to align with the State of California’s four-stage framework for reopening. The County will move forward with the State’s Stage 2 of reopening lower-risk businesses on May 8, 2020.  This will allow retail businesses, such as clothing stores, bookstores, sporting goods stores and florists, for example, to reopen with curb side delivery, as well as the related manufacturing and supply chain businesses.

“We are at a turning point because of the community’s incredible compliance with social distancing and the sacrifices of individuals and businesses. These efforts have saved lives, helped prevent the spread of the virus in our community and put us in a position to move forward gradually and safely in reopening our economy. Our ability to move forward is directly tied to our continuing commitment to physical distancing.  With the issuance of Dr. Levin’s new Stay Well VC Order, we will align even more closely with the Governor’s revised order because we support the approach of evaluating businesses for reopening based on level of risk and we believe it will provide greater clarity.  The new local order will retain some aspects of our previous order in areas such as guidelines for seniors and long-term care facilities,” said Mike Powers, County of Ventura CEO.

“Our community members have answered the call to stay well at home and thanks to them, we are in a position to move forward. These actions have saved lives. It is critical that our community continues to use caution. The virus is not gone. It is dangerous and poses a significant health risk. As we move into the next stage, we must do so with great care. We must continue to practice social distancing and businesses must make modifications needed to lower the risk of COVID-19 exposure,” said Public Health Officer Doctor Robert Levin.

The County has made progress in meeting the Governor’s requirements for moving forward. These steps have included: hospital surge and personal protective equipment capacity; protection of high-risk patient populations: seniors, long term care facility residents, homeless; contact tracing capacity and thoughtful data driven public health guidance.

“The efforts to protect our community health and our local economy are aligned.  Investing in these public health steps will benefit the health of our community as well as our local economy. Until there is a vaccine, these are the only tools we have to identify and prevent the spread of the virus in our community,” said Powers. “We have a plan for verification and education under our Public Health Officer Doctor Robert Levin’s guidance to further ensure our local businesses can reopen and do so safely. We have found almost universally that our local businesses truly want to comply. Businesses and local business leaders with the Economic Development Collaborative, Cities, Chambers, Women’s Economic Ventures and the Ventura County Economic Development Association have come to the table in the spirit of compliance. They get it and want to make sure they protect their employees and customers.”

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR BUSINESSES PLANNING TO REOPEN 

Before, reopening, all facilities must confirm the following: 

  1. My business is in one of the designated industries permitted to reopen by the State of California & the VC Health Officer order
  2. I have performed a detailed risk assessment of my business in accordance with state guidelines
  3. I have a written worksite-specific COVID-19 prevention plan and have posted it at my business
  4. I have implemented control and screening measures for my business
  5. I have implemented disinfecting protocols for my business in accordance with state guidelines
  6. I have trained employees on how to limit the spread of COVID-19 including how to screen themselves for symptoms
  7. I agree to have an on-duty employee responsible for monitoring compliance with my plan
  8. I have posted the compliance hotline flyer provided in a prominent location visible to the public and employees
  9. I have completed the attestation form on www.vcreopen.com.

If you are a business that is already permitted to be open and in operation you are asked to review these requirements and confirm that you have met these requirements by registering your business by May 18, 2020.

It is critical that employees needing to self-isolate because of COVID-19 are encouraged to stay home, with sick leave policies to support that, to prevent further infection in the workplace.

More information about Stage 2: Lower-risk workplaces can be found at https://covid19.ca.gov/roadmap/.

COVID-19 Stats as of May 7, 2020

23 new cases

631 total cases

430 recovered cases

27 hospitalized

13 in the ICU

182 cases under quarantine

19 deaths

12,465 people tested

www.vcemergency.com

Summary #
New cases 23
Total cases 631
Recovered Cases 430
Ever hospitalizations 115
Current hospitalizations 27
Ever ICU* 34
Current ICU 13
Active Cases Under Quarantine 182
Deaths 19
People Tested 12,465
*Current hospitalizations does not include those from LTC facilities that no longer require acute care but are being held at the facility to protect others.  Current ICU is underreported because we do not get notification when hospitalized patients are transferred to ICU. 
Age and Sex of Confirmed Cases: Female Male %
Age 0-17 15 8 3.6%
Age 18-24 42 21 10.0%
Age 25-44 98 81 28.4%
Age 45-64 115 127 38.4%
Age 65+ 58 66 19.7%
Unknown 0 0 0.0%
Total 328 303 100.0%
% by Sex 52.0% 48.0%  
       
Race/Ethnicity** % Cases % Deaths % of Population
Latino 45.6% 21.1% 44.5%
White 40.0% 68.4% 43.2%
Asian 6.9% 5.3% 7.4%
African American/Black 0.9% 5.3% 1.7%
Multiracial 0.5% 0.0% 2.5%
American Indian or Alaskan Native 0.5% 0.0% 0.3%
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander 0.9% 0.0% 0.2%
Other 4.7% 0.0% 0.2%
Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
**There are 208 cases not included in this analysis because of missing race/ethnicity data. 
Confirmed Cases: # %
Travel Related 19 3.0%
Person-to-person acquired 187 29.6%
Community acquired 295 46.8%
Under investigation 130 20.6%
Total 631 100.0%
City/Zip*** # % of Total Population**** Rate per 100,000 pop.
91320 – Thousand Oaks/Newbury Park 19 3.0% 46,191 41.1
91360 – Thousand Oaks 36 5.7% 42,104 85.5
91361 – Thousand Oaks/Lake Sherwood/Westlake 16 2.5% 20,487 78.1
91362 – Thousand Oaks/Westlake 28 4.4% 36,980 75.7
91377 – Oak Park 13 2.1% 14,226 91.4
93001 – Ventura 17 2.7% 33,139 51.3
93003 – Ventura 13 2.1% 51,304 25.3
93004 – Ventura 10 1.6% 30,473 32.8
93010 – Camarillo 36 5.7% 44,240 81.4
93012 – Camarillo/Santa Rosa Valley 17 2.7% 37,622 45.2
93015 – Fillmore 15 2.4% 18,832 79.7
93021 – Moorpark 33 5.2% 38,325 86.1
93022 – Oak View 2 0.3% 5,550 36.0
93023 – Ojai 6 1.0% 20,656 29.0
93030 – Oxnard 38 6.0% 62,016 61.3
93033 – Oxnard 67 10.6% 83,319 80.4
93035 – Oxnard 28 4.4% 28,321 98.9
93036 – Oxnard 30 4.8% 48,022 62.5
93040 – Piru 3 0.5% 1,831 163.8
93041 – Port Hueneme 12 1.9% 24,129 49.7
93060 – Santa Paula 21 3.3% 34,229 61.4
93063 – Simi Valley (Santa Susana) 53 8.4% 56,563 93.7
93065 – Simi Valley 116 18.4% 74,780 155.1
93066 – Somis 2 0.3% 3,481 57.5
Total 631 100.0% 853,896 73.9
***7 cases provided a PO Box address that has been assigned to another zip code within the city.
****Population estimates for 2020 from www.healthmattersinvc.org (Demographics Dashboard).