Coronavirus testing and contact tracing got underway late last week at a mobile home park in St. Helena after the city was notified that a resident of the park tested positive for the virus.
“Napa County Public Health officials are conducting contact tracing for those individuals who came in close contact with the infected resident,” St. Helena City Manager Mark Prestwich said Friday afternoon in a news release.
Prestwich said the Adventist Health St. Helena/St. Helena Hospital Foundation Mobile Health unit would provide onsite testing for specifically identified people who came in close contact with the infected resident at Vineyard Valley Mobile Home Park, 290 Pope St.
“The residents of St. Helena and Vineyard Valley Mobile Home Park have done a remarkable job through the many months of the COVID-19 emergency condition in keeping safe by staying calm, sheltering at home, wearing masks/face coverings and observing social distancing protocol,” Prestwich said. “It is important to continue doing so as the situation is addressed, and we work together through this situation.”
According to the latest information from Napa County Public Health, there have been 766 total cases of coronavirus in the county since March, with 26 of those in the city of St. Helena as of Monday.
Napa County said Friday in a weekly update that it continued to see weekly case counts of over 100. Between July 17 and July 24, there were 154 cases reported in Napa County for a total of 737 cumulative cases since the outbreak began in March. The previous Friday —July 17 — there were 583 total cases.
Trends in exposure were similar to the prior week.
“Most cases were related to household contacts, followed by community spread of unknown exposure and occupation exposure, especially in service-based industries,” Napa County Public Health officials said.
“There continues to be some small gatherings and travel related exposures, both from cases traveling or having visitors from out-of-county. There were slight shifts in case demographics. A similar percentage of cases were found among men (52 percent) and women (48 percent). More cases were seen among younger adults in their 20s and 30s, and the average age dropped from 42 years last week to 31 years this week. The trends in race/ethnicity remained stable; the majority of cases continued to be Hispanic/Latinx (57 percent). There was an average of two close contacts per case, resulting in about 289 new close contacts that were being monitored by the county.”