• A COVID-19 outbreak at Watsonville Nursing Center and Post Acute, a skilled nursing facility, has currently led to 32 patients contracting COVID-19, along with twelve staff members. The County regrets to announce that two patients have died. While we have been fortunate to date in not seeing these type of outbreak problems in care facilities, we are doing additional outreach and testing at other facilities to limit the spread and increase protections.

  • All of the Bay Area Health Officers collectively remind us to celebrate the season responsibly, and that many commonly celebrated Halloween and Día de Los Muertos activities can carry high risk for spreading COVID-19. Focusing on decorations, limiting activities to the people you live with, and virtual costume parties or contests will help keep our communities safe this season, especially our children. Together, we all need to do as much as we can to protect ourselves and those around us. For instance, trick-or-treating is a high-risk activity because it increases contact with people outside of your household who may not be as careful about COVID-19 prevention. Parties are also high-risk because mixing among people who don’t live in the same home introduces more opportunities for the virus to pass from one person to another. Contact tracing from all around the region has shown that gathering and mixing are key contributors to infection.