A Sacramento County community is a COVID-19 hot spot. Officials are scrambling for answers
A sharp increase in coronavirus cases has emerged in recent weeks within the agricultural city of Galt in Sacramento County, but finding targeted solutions to tackle the surge is proving challenging for local and county officials.
Just under 1 percent of Galt residents have tested positive for the coronavirus, or 240 people in the roughly 25,000-person city, according to county data released Wednesday. No deaths have been reported in the city.
That means Galt’s per capita infection rate is higher than any other city or unincorporated area of Sacramento County, excluding the tiny Delta city of Isleton, where 15 cases have been reported.
And despite the agricultural city being significantly smaller than Sacramento’s other sprawling suburbs, Galt has more total cases than Folsom and Citrus Heights, and just 22 fewer cases than Rancho Cordova.
“We were holding at 13 (infections) forever, and I have seen us leap frog past Folsom,” said interim city manager Thomas Haglund.
City officials aren’t certain why the spread of the coronavirus has become particularly bad in Galt. The increase started to pick up as many businesses began reopening across the region in June, in line with trends statewide.
Haglund said city officials also suspect some residents are getting sick from interactions with people and businesses in nearby Lodi and the greater San Joaquin County area, which has seen “nothing short of an explosion in COVID-19 cases.” San Joaquin County has nearly 1,200 more infections than Sacramento County, despite being roughly half Sacramento’s size.
“The majority of our folks travel outside of Galt every day to a job,” he said.
But more detailed statistical, demographic and anecdotal information collected by Sacramento County health officials and contact tracers about who is getting infected — and, notably, how they’re getting infected — remains unavailable to most cities, including Galt.
Sacramento County public health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye said that the county simply doesn’t have enough health department staffers to offer that kind of analysis and is focused on releasing existing data points like countywide hospitalizations and positivity rates on county website dashboards.
“We are definitely getting an outpouring of requests for data and there is no way we can meet all requests given the constraints, and given our priority is doing the contact tracing and contacting people,” Kasirye said.
Gatherings in Galt behind COVID-19 spike?
Haglund said city staffers have talked to Sacramento County health officials, who say contact tracers are finding family gatherings are a leading cause of infections in Galt, as well as the region.
But other data points, such as whether cases south of the city really are driving infections, and whether Latinos are disproportionately affected in Galt, remains unknown. Galt’s population is 43 percent Latino, and Latinos have been infected in higher numbers than any other ethnic group in Sacramento County.
“I would like to have the information for targeting purposes, if it were to show something skewing one way or another,” Haglund said. “But having said that, I don’t know if I need that (information) to communicate with my community.”
Some residents in Galt, who skew more conservative, have expressed skepticism about the severity of the virus and the need for safety precautions like mask wearing and social distancing. Isel Gutierrez, manager of local restaurant Las Islitas Mariscos, saw that first hand when dine-in service was allowed earlier this month.
“I’ve actually had more customers upset I’m wearing the mask,” Gutierrez said. “I’ve had customers say, ‘This is ridiculous, this is scary for you guys to wear it,’ and I just have to tell them we’re sorry but we must follow the protocols.”
The worrying trend in Galt comes as state officials become increasingly alarmed about accelerating infection and hospitalization rates across California, which began to spike over the summer as some counties allowed residents to return to work.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday ordered all counties on the state’s watch list — which applies to 32 counties, including Sacramento, Yolo, Placer, Yuba and Sutter counties — to shutdown indoor business at gyms, barbershops, nail salons, malls and more.
The new wave of closures comes after indoor activities like dine-in at restaurants, movie theaters, bowling alleys and more had already been shutdown in watchlist counties earlier this month. Newsom announced that shutdowns for those industries would now be expanded to all California counties, effective immediately.
Though financially painful, those crackdowns may signal to residents that the worst of the pandemic may be yet to come.
“We have residents not adhering to social distancing by holding garage parties, birthday parties,” Haglund continued. “There’s a broader disconnect between the pandemic and how contagious it is.
“I get the sense that people are just tired of hearing this.”
This story was originally published July 16, 2020 at 5:00 AM.