17 Coronavirus Cases Reported In One Week In El Cerrito

EL CERRITO, CA — Contra Costa County’s new stay-at-home order is now in effect and will last at least 3 weeks. The latest statistics show why county health officers acted with four other Bay Area counties to impose restrictions before required by the state.

Contra Costa County added 2,980 confirmed cases over the last week, from Monday to Sunday. Here in El Cerrito, 17 new cases were confirmed.

No new deaths have been reported, but that is expected to change as COVID-19 typically takes weeks from the point when a patient is diagnosed to when they die. The death toll remains at 267.

Here's a look at cases throughout the county —

With the stay-at-home order in place, the East Bay Regional Park District has closed all campgrounds, playgrounds, outdoor museums, and visitor centers.

Campground closures include Livermore's Del Valle Regional Park, and Oakland's Anthony Chabot Regional Park, and Robert Sibley Regional Preserve Backpack Campground, according to the park district. Camp reservations made through Jan. 4 will be canceled and refunded.

Facilities at Ardenwood Historic Farm and Regional Parks Botanic Garden are also closed. Visitor centers remain closed, including Black Diamond, Big Break, Coyote Hills, Crab Cove, Sunol, and Tilden.

"Please keep parks safe for everyone by following all COVID-19 safety requirements," the district said in a news release.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Monday that Californians can opt into an app starting Thursday that will notify residents if they have potentially been exposed to coronavirus. "The more people that participate in it, the more effective this program can be," said Gov. Gavin Newsom during a news briefing Monday. "[This is] another tool in our toolkit in terms of impacting the spread and transmission rate of this virus."

The app was tested by 250,000 students and staff members on 5 University of California campuses.

California will receive more than 2 million doses of coronavirus vaccine by the end of the month. Health care workers will be the first to receive vaccines.

So far, there have been 19,935 deaths recorded in California, with 59 deaths reported Monday. More than 374 new patients were admitted to hospitals for coronavirus on Monday, bringing the total to 10,998 hospitalized patients in California, a 3.4 increase from Sunday.

In Contra Costa, there are still 99 ICU beds available.

— Written by Patch editors Bea Karnes, Courtney Teague, and Kat Schuster