Lodi, CA…People living in Calaveras County can now schedule a COVID-19 test at a new testing center in Lodi. The state of California teamed up with OptumServe to open 80 new testing sites across the state to expand and offer more testing. Individuals will be billed through their health insurance. Tests will be paid by the state for individuals without health insurance. Copays or deductibles will not apply to this visit. No fees will be collected at the testing site. While priority is given to those who are high risk, everyone is welcome to schedule testing by going online to https://lhi.care/covidtesting or by calling OptumServe at (888) 634-1123. To find a testing site nearest you go to https://bit.ly/2ypCrMv.

This comes at a time when California Governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to move the state closer to lifting stay-at-home orders and re-opening the economy. The state plans to reopen parts of the state in four stages. However, to ensure that there is not a resurgence of coronavirus cases, counties must meet certain criteria to proceed in relaxing their stay-at-home directives. As of now, six areas will drive California’s ability to change the state’s stay-at-home order:

 Expanding testing and contact tracing to be able to identify and isolate those with the virus;
 Preventing infection in people who are most at risk;
 Being able to handle surges in hospitals and the health care delivery system;
 Ensuring businesses, schools and child care facilities can support physical distancing; and
 Determining when to reinstate certain measures like the stay-at-home order if cases begin to increase

Local efforts have already ramped up in Calaveras County in anticipation of the state’s plans. Calaveras Public Health is building up the trained workforce to do contact tracing as California begins the early phase of relaxing stay-at-home orders. These contact tracers will need to quickly locate and speak to people with suspected or confirmed infection as well as everyone whom they have had close contact while they may have been infectious.
“In addition to testing, the ability to do contact tracing and do it quickly is important to protect Calaveras communities,” said Dr. Dean Kelaita, Calaveras County Health Officer. “If we see COVID-19 cases start to spread through our community this means that strict efforts will be needed again to contain the virus. Calaveras Public Health continues to meet with community partners to ensure our ability to respond to a surge in COVID-19 cases remains robust”.

Without a vaccine, social distancing measures are necessary to protect the health and well-being of Calaveras communities and safeguard our healthcare system. The best protection against COVID-19 is to:
 Wash your hands often with soap and water
 Avoid touching your eye, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands
 Self-isolate if you are sick
 Maintain physical distancing (especially by staying at home)
 Wear a cloth face covering when out in public for essential activities

“This is not a small thing we have asked the people of Calaveras to do,” said Dr. Kelaita. “Our community will look back and know that the actions we took successfully protected Calaveras during this pandemic, including our most vulnerable.”

Those at higher risk of serious illness to COVID-19 should contact their doctor as soon as they become sick. Based on what we know now, those at high risk for severe illness from COVID-19 are:
 People 65 years and older
 People who live in nursing home or a long-term care facility
 People of all ages with underlying medical conditions, especially of not well controlled, including:
o Chronic disease or moderate to severe asthma
o Serious heart conditions
o Compromised immune systems
 Many conditions can cause a person to be immunocompromised, including cancer treatment, smoking, bone marrow or organ transplantation, immune deficiencies, poorly controlled HIV or AIDS, prolonged use of immune weakening medications.
 Severe obesity (body mass index or BMI of 40 or higher)
 Diabetes
 Chronic kidney disease undergoing dialysis
 Liver disease

Public Health advises everyone that if you are ill with a fever or respiratory symptoms, even with mild symptoms, to self- isolate at home for 10 days and until you are fever
and symptom free for 72 hours. If you have been in close contact with a person who has tested positive for COVID-19, or is presumed to be infected with COVID-19, you should quarantine at home for 14 days from your last contact with that individual.

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases for Calaveras County has remained at thirteen. All thirteen cases have since recovered. To date, there have been no reported deaths to COVID-19.
Confirmed COVID-19 numbers in Calaveras County by Age and Gender:
Age Gender 0-17 1 Female 8
18-49
4
Male
5 50-64 1 Unreported 0
65+
7
Unreported 0
Test Results Received 458
Recovered
13 Deaths 0
TOTAL CONFIRMED CASES
13
COVID-19 information and resources can be found on the Calaveras Public Health website at https://covid19.calaverasgov.us/. The COVID-19 Community Service Call Center is available Monday-Friday, 8:30am-4:00pm at (209) 754-2896.