The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: Humboldt County Health Alert

  • Humboldt County skips from yellow to red tier

    Part of a statewide effort to slow COVID-19 cases, Humboldt county enters a heavily restrictive tier.

    Humboldt County moved into a heavily restrictive tier as part of a statewide COVID-19 response. California saw a rise of cases within the past weeks, reporting 57,000 new cases within the past seven days. Governor Gavin Newsom said this will slow down any plans of reopening.

    Part of a 40 county reorganization, Humboldt has been moved from the lowest tier into the second highest tier, with 4.8 cases for every 100,000 tests conducted.

    42 percent of positive, reported Humboldt county cases have occurred within the Latinx community, despite making up only 12.3 percent of the population according to 2019 US Census Bureau data.

    In a Humboldt Health Alert sent out on Nov. 16, Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Teresa Frankovich said that the current case rates could possibly move Humboldt into the most restrictive tier.

    “Since the state first implemented the Blueprint framework, they’ve signaled that they could move faster if conditions warranted,” said Frankovich. “Our recent data shows why that makes sense because this virus is moving faster than we have ever seen, and rapid response can help to slow the upward trajectory.”

    Under the new tier list all bars, breweries and distilleries will be closed while wineries can be open outdoors only. Restaurants, retail shops and places of worship can be open “…indoors at maximum 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is fewer,” according to the Humboldt Health Alert.

    The CDC and the Humboldt Department of Health and Human Services both highly advise against having gatherings for the holidays as this will most likely increase the spread of COVID-19.

    “We simply need to stop traveling and stop gathering, especially indoors. It isn’t safe, and it is impacting our schools and our business communities,” Frankovich said in the health alert. “The upcoming holidays need to be single household celebrations if we want to get through this pandemic with fewer hospitalizations and fewer lives lost.”

    Nationwide, cases continue to spike. The New York Times is currently tracking around 11.4 million cases reported nationwide and nearly 250,000 deaths attributed to the virus, as of time of publication.

    The Center for Disease Control has predicted that “…the number of newly reported COVID-19 deaths will likely increase over the next four weeks, with 5,500 to 13,400 new deaths likely to be reported in the week ending Dec. 5, 2020. The national ensemble predicts that a total of 260,000 to 282,000 COVID-19 deaths will be reported by this date.”

  • All aboard the plague ship

    All aboard the plague ship

    Reopening the school in any capacity must have been the worst idea possible. There was not enough preparation for letting students come back to Humboldt State University. While it is understandable that every student has their own reasons for living on campus, the risks are high. HSU President Tom Jackson made it clear that suspending move-in dates and face-to-face instruction until a later date was prejudice and not necessary.

    With cases spiking in recent days, the community is at risk. In a press release from the Humboldt County Joint Information Center, people between 20 and 29 have the highest percentage of new COVID-19 cases locally. Young adults are becoming the primary carriers of COVID-19 and are spreading it unknowingly.

    Humboldt County Health Alert recently rose to a Level 3, which means “High Risk- Many cases with conditions for community spread, with many undetected cases likely. Limit everyday activities to increase safety.”

    Opening up the university to a thousand students in a single week is like pouring salt on a fresh wound. Although Arcata is open to tourism for the economic stimulation, the town was not ready for it. When Arcata first opened back up to the locals, the cases were low and stable. Then tourism started to pick up. Travel has put the community in danger and is a contributing factor for the rise in cases.

    There is a large elderly and retiree population in Arcata and surrounding communities, like Eureka and McKinleyville. Humboldt County Public Health Officer Dr. Teresa Frankovich stated that the transmission can, in time, contribute to increased exposure for older individuals who are of higher risk of serious disease and even death.

    Letting a large amount of students move in during the middle of a pandemic in a small town was not a good judgment call. The protocols and guidelines put in place by HSU can go wrong in various ways.

    While the single occupancy rooms for student housing were supposed to be a way to shelter in place, there are common areas that the students will share with their housemates such as the living room, kitchen and bathrooms. On the Humboldt State Campus Ready website, it was vaguely mentioned that these common areas will be limited and if violations persist, they will be restricted. But with student housing employees matching one to every hundred students, the likelihood of knowing these violations are occurring are nearly impossible.

    With five students and one faculty member having tested positive, HSU has made COVID-19 testing mandatory for student residents throughout the semester. However, the Student Health Center states on the Campus Ready website that testing will be done “in a limited capacity due to a nationwide shortage of tests.”

    Regarding limited face-to-face instruction, the administration is putting the responsibility on the students to ensure they stay healthy. If a student were to test positive for COVID-19 while at HSU, it would be their fault for not following the guidelines to satisfaction, instead of the university’s for being open. The best way to keep students safe is to not have contact with other students. That risk became a reality when a thousand new, incoming students decided to move on campus.

    Dr. Frankovich and President Jackson should not have agreed to open the campus in the first place back in June. There had to have been consideration of the possible influx of cases during the summer months with tourism. Not to mention, fall and winter months correspond with the influenza season. Incoming students will not just be battling COVID-19 but also the flu, the symptoms of which are almost identical.

    There were a lot of important individuals that conversed in making these decisions. Unfortunately, the people being put at risk obviously weren’t a part of the conversation.