Using the County’s Covid-19 Tool

Calavaras County has a website that provides a lot of useful information if you live in the County. If you go to the County’s Covid-19 page, you can link to the tool which gets updated Monday through Friday. The Community Information Center Dashboard is actually quite useful to see what’s going on with Covid-19 but it’s not intuitive.

When you open the webpage you get a default screen that shows a variety of useful information.

An opening view of the County’s Community Info Center

In the left-hand column, the first row, it shows the number of cases and the number of vaccines given within the county. The second row shows the active cases and recovered cases. The third row shows the number of hospitalizations and deaths. All of these numbers are from the same data provided to the State.

Click on the second tab to show daily cases.

The center of the screen shows the total cases over time within the County. Good that the angle is slowing, but there’s another image that makes it clearer what’s happening within the County.

If you click on the second tab at the bottom of the screen labeled “New Cases by Day” then you can see how we’re doing. I found this a much easier-to-understand graph. The third tab shows the total number of cases in the county without a clue as to where they occur. (Keep reading because there’s other information available.)

The State’s Tier Rates

Returning to the main view, in the upper right-hand corner it shows what the County’s Current Monitoring Status is. This is part of the State’s guidelines with restrictions on businesses. The Tiers are: 1 (Purple), 2 (Red), 3 (Orange), and 4 (Yellow) with Tier 1 (Purple) being the most restrictive.

Clicking on ZIP Code tab, shows the cases by ZIP Code

At the time I did the screenshots for this article, we were in Tier 1 (Purple). We’re now in Tier 2 (Red) (Yea!). Under the Monitoring Status, it shows Cases by Age. But we have additional information to view.
In the far-right column, underneath where the information showed Cases by Age, you can select Cases by Zip Code. I know my ZIP code but offhand don’t know other ZIP codes within the County. So here they are, in the same order as they appear on this site. (And no cases in Avery? Good on you!)

95221, 95222 (Angels Camp)
95223 (Arnold)
95225 (Burson)
95228 (Copperopolis)
95232 (Glencoe), 95245 (Mokelumne Hill)
95233 (Avery)
95246 (Mountain Ranch), 95250 (Sheep Ranch)
95224 (Avery), 95247 (Murphys), 95251 (Vallecito), 95229 (Vallecito)
95249 (San Andreas)
95226 (Campo Seco), 95252 (Rancho Calaveras) (Valley Springs combined)
95254 (Wallace)
95255 (West Point), 95257 (Wilseyville), 95248 (Rail Road Flat)
Other

If you mouse-over one of the bars, you can see the totals for that ZIP code. It makes it quite obvious which areas are better about wearing masks.

Clicking on the COVID-19 Test Stites tab along the top, shows places where you can get tested for COVID-19.

The second tab, COVID-19 Test Sites brings up where you can go and get tested to see if you have COVID-19.

If you click on the red dot near you, you can find out when and where you can get tested for COVID-19. Make sure that you check each site for the dates, time, and location for the testing sites. Why do you care? We need to continue to test for COVID-19 mainly to control the spread of the disease but also to meet the State’s testing requirements. So many people are asymptomatic (without symptoms), especially younger people, it’s important to quickly identify cases.

Okay, so I’ve just covered the COVID-19-related part of this website. It’s actually full of useful information about weather, fire, evacuation, power outages, air quality. The CalOES (California Office of Emergency Services) has live webcams showing parts of the County. During fire season, it’s a nice way to keep track of fires near you. The tab labeled “Evacuation Application” is worth keeping track of as that is where the County’s OES posts information on evacuation centers and routes during fire season. To find out more, in the upper-right-hand corner of the page, there’s a link to help you: “Click here for video tutorial.”

All of this should have helped make you even more aware of the importance of following COVID-19 guidelines. In addition to getting a vaccine when it becomes available to you, continuing to follow preventive measures such as physical distancing, wearing a face covering, and staying home when sick or experiencing symptoms will help us continue on the path to the Orange Tier and avoid moving back to Purple. If you’d like to get a vaccine, please register with the State’s MyTurn website.