On Oct. 28, 2020 Ventura County hosted the weekly COVID-19 press conference. Ventura County remains in the red tier but if the county does not continue to work together and the tier metrics deteriorate, there is a possibility of moving back to the first tier, the purple tier.

The Blueprint for a Safer Economy is California’s four tier plan for reopening and easing guidelines. According to the Covid-19 website, each tier is based on test positivity rates and adjusted case rates. In order to move to a less restrictive tier, counties must stay at the same tier for three weeks before moving forward.

Kelly Long, Ventura County Board of Supervisors Board Chair, expressed her concern for the counties in California who regressed their progress.

“I just want to reiterate the fact that we really do need to work together. My heart goes out to those counties who have had to go back (tiers). I know we are all working very hard to go from red to orange which means more indoor working and so forth,” Long said.

Ventura County’s positivity rate and health equity metric qualify for the orange tier, the third of four. However, the current case rate is holding back the county from moving forward.

The case rate metric is the seven-day average case rate per 100,000. The case rate from last week was 5.1. The county’s case rate has since improved to a 4.9.

On Oct. 28, 2020, Ventura County reported 60 new cases and 524 active cases throughout the county. There are 1,070 new people tested in Ventura County.

Seleta Dobrosky, Infectious Disease Prevention Administrator for Ventura County, further explained the county’s decision to stay in the red tier.

“Our positivity rate is 2.6 % and our health equity metric is 2.9%. Both of those meet the criteria for the orange tier, although we still need to stay in that more restrictive tier for now,” Dobrosky explains. “This all comes down to personal responsibility to not get COVID-19 and not give COVID-19. If we’re careful we can keep our covid numbers on this downwards trend in the mists of other states, and countries and even counties that are experiencing surges right now.”

In addition, it’s fire season in Southern California which usually brings the Santa Ana wind conditions. Santa Ana winds usually bring extremely dry weather prompting red flag warnings and critical fire weather.

Kim Dellacort, Emergency Manager for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services, discussed the safety measures Southern California Edison is taking.

“For public safety shutoff, Southern California Edison monitors this weather, and they start to monitor circuits in these fire prone areas. They may temporarily choose to turn off the power if they feel or believe that there’s a risk that some electrical equipment could be an ignition source to igniting a wildfire,” Dellacort said.

For more information about Ventura County’s effort to reopen, visit venturacountyrecovers.org and to learn more about public safety power shutoffs, visit www.vcemergency.com