Sonoma Valley possible location of new workplace outbreaks

Even as Sonoma County Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase pushes the pause button on reopening some businesses, troubling new evidence is emerging that workplace outbreaks and increased community spread may demonstrate why it’s not yet safe to return to normal.

Two of those workplace outbreaks may have been in Sonoma Valley, one at an elder care facility in Kenwood and another at an area winery. Whether or not this means the Sonoma Valley has emerged as a new hotspot for COVID-19 cases, however, awaits evolving results in the county health care reporting.

The number of new COVID cases reported on the county’s dashboard at socoemergency.com shows a spike in new cases started developing mid-month, in keeping with Mase’s prediction that widespread testing would produce increased positive results.

In mid-May a surge started, and 134 new cases were uncovered in the week between May 19 and May 26 – rising from 390 cases in the county to 524.

About 20 of them were recently uncovered in Sonoma Valley, 1st District Supervisor Susan Gorin reported Tuesday, May 26 to online viewers during the meeting of the Springs Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) - though some of these may not yet have made it to the dashboard of publically-reported cases.

When asked by MAC member Avram Goldman about the generally modest numbers of corona cases in the eastern county – 22 at the beginning of the week – Gorin interrupted him: “They’ll be higher. Significantly higher.”

“I think you will see some (new figures), the contact tracers are going bananas over this,” continued Gorin, referring to county workers who trace the recent contacts of residents who have tested positive for COVID-19. “The care home in Kenwood probably (had) four or five cases, and the winery 14 or 15 cases. So that will be a significant increase.” Gorin didn’t identify the senior care facility or the winery.

Maureen Cottingham, executive director of the Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers Alliance, said she couldn’t confirm that a Valley winery had suffered an outbreak of the virus.

“At this point, we do not have any validated information on this rumor,” she told the Index-Tribune.

Mase threw cold water on the idea that the increase in COVID numbers was only an artifact of testing, saying most of the new cases emerged from contact tracing – following the line of contacts backward from a positive case to the original infected person to family, friends and social contacts who may have also come in touch with the virus.

Gorin said that the county’s contact tracing showed how the virus spread from the Sonoma Valley senior-care home to the wider community.

“Yes we are seeing an uptick in our tests and COVID diagnosis because of our increased testing county-wide,” said Gorin, “but in Sonoma Valley, two employees did bring the virus into the elder-care home, and infected the folks residing there.

“Then they infected family members, and the family members went to work, then infecting their co-workers. That’s the transmission path of the virus. It doesn’t take much.”

During her regular press briefing on Wednesday, May 27, Mase couldn’t confirm the winery cluster.

“I actually frankly have been so busy with many things I’m not following numbers of cases in certain groups, so I can’t corroborate any of that at this point,” Mase told the Index-Tribune.

She did confirm, however, that “We’re having workplace outbreaks,” and said they were doing a lot of contact tracing and testing in vineyards “and other settings.”

At the Springs MAC meeting, Gorin said that some of the positive cases were now in quarantine at Sonoma State University, where the county has set up an Alternative Care Site (ACS) for corona-positives to be isolated from the larger community. The ACS has a current capacity of 552, but it can be expanded if need be said Rohish Lal of the county Department of Health.

Lal said there are 101 people in quarantine at the SSU location as of mid-week.

The cluster of cases in workplace settings has caused Mase some concern. She defended her go-slow policy, which took exception with Gov. Newsom’s clearance of Sonoma and 46 other California counties to reopen further.

“These are changing metrics, daily,” Mase said of the published dashboard numbers. “For me the main difference is the case rate, it’s now 40 per 100,000 but two weeks ago it was 20 per 100,000. And the fact that we’re seeing clusters not only in households but in workplaces – we were not having workplace outbreaks two or three weeks back, and now we are.”

She also pointed to increasing numbers of hospitalized patients and new patients being “intubated” for intensive care treatment.

“And of course cases are rapidly rising in the Latinx population, that’s a great concern for that community,” she added.

Mase held firm to her two-week pause as giving the Sonoma County Health Department the necessary time to evaluate the shifting numbers before moving to re-open certain businesses in the county – or possibly return to earlier levels of shelter-in-place.

“All of that depends on what we see over the next few weeks,” said Mase. “If we’re holding steady or doing better, then we’ll start opening new sectors (of business). If it looks like we’re getting more and more cases, then we’ll consider going back to more restrictive measures.

“It just depends on what we see.”

Contact Christian at christian.kallen@sonomanews.com.