Slight uptick in COVID-19 in Sonoma, Napa counties, though infections mostly mild

For months, the number of COVID-19 tests turning up positive at Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital was 6% to 11%.

In the past two weeks, however, that number has jumped to between 15% and 18%, a clear sign of an “uptick” in COVID-19 infections, said Dr. Gary Green, a Sutter Health infectious disease expert.

But he said most of these cases have been mild, with no one requiring intensive care treatment.

“There’s been moderate activity of COVID, and we’re seeing it start to go up,” Green said. “But we don’t know if it’s going to spike. The good new is that most of it is outpatient, mild disease.”

Green said the Sutter facility recently had three patients hospitalized with COVID-19. He added that as of about six months ago, the hospital no longer conducts a COVID-19 test for everyone admitted into the hospital.

With the pandemic increasingly in the rear view mirror, widespread laboratory testing for COVID-19 is no longer conducted. Such things as case rates have become unreliable.

Public health officials have turned to COVID-19 hospitalization figures and detection of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater to determine epidemiological trends of the virus.

According to the county’s COVID-19 wastewater surveillance webpage, there’s been an increase in COVID-19 viral concentration in wastewater in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park. Windsor wastewater also saw and increase in viral concentrations during that period, but levels have since plateaued.

Stephen Johnston, a public health researcher for Sonoma County, said in an email that Petaluma stopped participating in wastewater surveillance in May 2023 but may come back online soon.

COVID-19 hospitalizations in Sonoma County have averaged a little more than a dozen during the first two weeks of July. During that time, there’s been no more than one or two COVID-19 cases treated in ICU.

Johnston said that state hospital data updates have been delayed with the latest available data current through July 15. But Johnston said “based on local surveillance we do see a slight increase in hospitalizations.”

He said counts increased from an average of 10-12 COVID-19 positive patients hospitalized per week to an average of 21 COVID-19 hospitalizations for the week July 24.

Providence officials said Monday their hospitals in the North Bay have not seen any recent uptick in COVID positive patients. But officials said Providence is “well positioned” to handle any sort of surge in cases.

Across the state and across the country, health care and public health professionals have also detected and uptick in COVID-19 cases. Dr. John Swartzberg, a UC Berkeley infectious disease expert, said it’s too soon to say whether the current “uptick” will become the kind of surge or wave in cases previously seen during the height of the pandemic.

He said that many have developed immunity to the virus either through infection, vaccination or both.

“We’re not seeing very many people get real sick and die,” Swartzberg said. “But there’s a lot of COVID going around, a lot of people are still getting sick … it’s infecting people with some degree of immunity, either from previous infection or vaccination, but it’s not landing them in the hospital.”

“It’s not challenging our health care system,” he said.

The other “good news,” he added, is that there have been no new significant variants detected since Dec. 1, 2021, when omicron and its subvariants dominated the pandemic landscape.

“We know the beast we’re dealing with,” he said. “That’s good news, we know our enemy.”

In Napa County, wastewater surveillance of the COVID-19 virus has seen a “very slight uptick” since low detection levels in mid-June, said Jennifer Henn, a Napa County public health manager. Henn said that COVID-19 viral concentration in wastewater doesn’t directly correlate to a specific number of cases, but “evidence does point to a little uptick.“

Henn also said there was a slight increase in the number of outbreaks at local long-term senior care facilities, though “nothing too major” for the moment. She said now is the time for people to get “caught up“ on their COVID-19 vaccines, before the number of COVID-19 cases increases in the coming months.

Swartzberg and Green both expressed concern for those who have been in COVID-19’s crosshairs since the start of the pandemic in 2020. That includes frail, elderly residents, those with compromised immune systems and people with serious chronic illnesses, as well as those who have not been vaccinated.

“I worry about the frail elderly, I worry about my mom who is 92, I worry about nursing home residents,” Green said, adding that Sutter is preparing to coordinate its COVID-19 vaccine strategies with their influenza vaccine efforts.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or [email protected]. On Twitter @pressreno.