Sacramento County Works To Educate Residents In Coronavirus Hotspots

RANCHO CORDOVA (CBS13) — Sacramento County health officials are keeping a close eye on several hotspots throughout the county as cases of coronavirus continue to rise.

Sacramento County experienced its largest coronavirus spike on Friday with 154 new cases. As of Friday, there have been 2,666 cases and 66 reported coronavirus-related deaths in the county.

Firehouse Crawfish in Rancho Cordova reopened two weeks ago for dine-in service. Now, the restaurant is trying to navigate conducting business in one of the county's hotspots.

"I would say we are more concerned, but we should be cautious with what is going on," said manager, Lan Nguyen. "It's not something that we can control, but it's something we can prevent it by just wearing the mask, protecting ourselves and sanitizing."

Rancho Cordova has 156 cases of coronavirus, according to the county. The city is one of five zip codes in the county that have 75 or more cases. The prevalence of coronavirus has caused approximately four employees at the restaurant to not come back to work.

"We have certain staff that feel like it is unsafe to be at work, so they do end up staying at home," said Nguyen.

The increase is causing some who live in the city to consider spending more time at home."I have a lot of friends my age and older and they are terrified," said Arthur Gazman. "What's most troubling is you don't know if there is an end to this."

Some are questioning the increase in numbers and if the areas need to be concerned.

"How many people are they testing? What's the percentages that they are testing, as to what they were testing before? I'm skeptical, I'm not saying it's not real, I'm just curious as to are they blowing up these numbers because they are testing more?" said Eric Everette.

Others who call the area home are glad to be back outside after months of quarantine.

"I feel like people are just getting restless. they don't care as much.... I don't think it is going to change much of what I do, to be honest with you," said Denzel Harry.

Janna Haynes, Public Information Officer for Sacramento County, said the hotspots are seeing higher numbers due to a combination of care facilities, more testing, and indoor family gatherings.

"We are seeing a trend across the county, but particularly in some of these locations where there is more cases of people popping up of people getting together in family gatherings. Indoor family gatherings is really the key. The indoor part is where it becomes dangerous," she said.

The county has outlined the zipcodes on an online map to show how many cases are in each area. In an effort to reduce numbers, the county is focusing on education. Haynes said they are working with public health nurses and community partners to go into communities and pass out pamphlets while talking to people about the risks.

"We can see the trend, we try to react to the trends through testing, through outreach and figure out what we need to do so that particular neighborhoods don't suffer the consequences more than the rest of the county," said Haynes.

The county is urging people to stop participating in large gatherings, as some residents are trying to regain a sense of normalcy after months in quarantine.

"I'm not going to stop my life. I'm not going to live my life in fear," Everette said.

Featured Local Savings

More from CBS News