Locals remain cautious as coronavirus variant spreads

It’s been about a month since Marin County reopened its economy and ditched most pandemic-related restrictions — but many around the Tiburon Peninsula say they remain wary of the virus as cases and hospitalizations begin to tick back up with the increased prevalence of the Delta variant.

On June 14, just a day before the county’s long-awaited reopening, the county reported its hospitals had zero COVID-19 patients for the first time in more than a year — a milestone public-health officials connected to the county’s high vaccination rate. At the time, some 90 percent of eligible residents age 12 and older had received at least one dose of the vaccine, a figure that has since increased to 92 percent.

However, in the weeks since the reopening, cases and hospitalizations have begun ticking up again. As of July 11, seven coronavirus patients currently required hospitalization — two in intensive care — and the county had recorded 112 new coronavirus cases in the prior 14 days, according to Marin Health and Human Services data. Since the reopening, the seven-day average new-case rate had nearly tripled to more than nine per 100,000 residents — a figure that, at least unadjusted, would have qualified Marin for the highest-risk purple tier for widespread transmission under California’s now-retired blueprint for reopening the economy.

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