My message this week is brief during this Thanksgiving week of reflection.

What more encouraging milestone of our progress this Thanksgiving than the take up of the first doses of the vaccine among San Mateo County children ages 5 to 11 already reaching 26.9% (17,144) as of November 21st! Our first dose reach among those ages 12 to 15 is 88.3% (32,658), with 81.3% having completed the series. We hope that San Mateo County and the greater Bay Area will see continued progress and exceed expectations yet again through patient, sustained education, and outreach. Although the Kaiser Family Foundation survey suggests that only 27% of parents were certain to arrange for vaccinations of their children, 33% were inclined to wait and see, and 30% were opposed. The early progress here is encouraging.

While we must remain careful these holidays and the State has again shared pointers, I’m also glad to share that our COVID case rate has slightly dropped now to 5.5 new cases per 100,000 in our population, and the CDC has moved us back into the “moderate” tier for community transmission. The positivity for the virus at 1.2% countywide, and 1.3% in our equity census tracts is relatively low, as are hospitalizations. Yesterday the census of residents in the hospital with COVID was 11. As we enter the holiday season, we expect to see increases, but we are grateful to see a slight downturn just before Thanksgiving and hope that continued progress on the vaccination rate overall as well as access by all adults to the boosters will further protect our residents.

With your support and the incredible commitment of so many partners in this County, we are truly in a better place and

All Together Better,

Louise