COVID-19 cases have more than tripled in Manteca, Ripon, and Lathrop in the past five days.
The surge is inundating test sites and creating major headaches for employers to keep work shifts staffed.
"Like everyone else, we’re scrambling to secure substitutes,” noted Manteca Unified School District Community Outreach Director Victoria Brunn.
Unlike some other districts Manteca Unified hasn’t been forced to cancel any classes. But even the district’s proactive move to lock in a significant number of substitutes before the start of the school year by signing them to long-term contracts instead of on a day-by-day basis hasn’t freed them from the daily challenge of being able to staff classrooms.
As far as testing, however, the free home tests for all school children that Gov. Gavin Newsom promised before school resumed after winter break have finally arrived.
The district picked up their allocation at the county office. Some schools started distributing the tests to students Monday with others expected to follow suit today.
Delivery issues the state encountered delayed the distribution of the free tests.
Reflecting the demand were large lines Monday at the HR Support free test site at the Manteca Transit Center.
At midday the line had more than 80 people waiting and spilled out into the Tidewater Bikeway.
By 3.p.m. the line had dropped to 40. Several people showing up at the time instead of waiting they would return today when the test site opens at 8:30 a.m.
Last week the wait at times at the test site created lines of 20 or so people at peak times. That contrasted sharply with before Christmas. If lines formed at that time they rarely exceeded 10 and that was only at peak demand times.
The number of positive cases in Lathrop since Jan. 6 soared five-fold on Monday going from 50 to 250. Manteca went up 3½ times from 128 to 438 while Ripon tripled from 22 to 66.
Tracy, for the first time since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, had more new cases than Manteca. Tracy was at 848 new cases Monday compared to 438 for Manteca.
The latest Manteca Unified COVID dashboard numbers posted on Jan. 6 were at 21 with nine students and 12 staff members out of 27,000 people testing positive. That compared to 39 on Dec. 16 that reflected 33 students and six staff members.
Brunn expects the number to be significantly higher when new numbers are posted for the district’s COVID dashboard in Friday.
Brunn said students, teachers, and support staff are “doing what they are supposed to do” when they come down with any known symptom of COVID even if it also mirrored that of the flu or a common cold — stay home.
And while a number after being tested may find out they don’t have COVID but the flu or a cold, it prevents the spread of the virus.
In the past three days, three more people in Manteca have died due to COVID complications. That brings the Manteca toll to 179 since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
There has been an additional death in Lathrop to bring the number to 33. The Ripon death toll stayed unchanged at 29.
There have been 1,926 overall deaths in San Joaquin County. Of those 65.7 percent or 1,254 have been those 65 years and older. In other age groups 466 have died who are between the ages of 50 and 64, 188 between the ages of 18 and 49, and one person in the 17 and under age bracket.
Just over 20 percent had no or known underlying comorbidity.
In excess of 35 percent had diabetes, nearly 30 percent cardiovascular disease, 15 percent were obese, 6 percent had asthma, and roughly 14 percent had chronic lung disease.
Manteca now has 72.5 percent of its target age groups fully vaccinated and another 9.8 percent with one shot. The percentages for Lathrop are 86.7 percent and 12.4 percent. Ripon’s numbers are 65 percent and 8.1 percent.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
