Posted
By Thadeus Greenson@ThadeusGreenson
on Wed, May 12, 2021 at 3:36 PM
Humboldt County Public Health confirmed Humboldt County's 41st COVID-19 related death — a resident in their 70s — today, as well as 18 new cases and three new hospitalizations.
The cases were reported after laboratories processed 243 samples with a test-positivity rate of 7.4 percent, pushing the county past another grim pandemic milestone to a cumulative case total of 4,002. A total of 67 cases have been confirmed so far this week, following 86 last week and a combined 267 the two prior weeks.
Officials are pointing to the local presence of the B.1.1.7 variant as a reason for the recentsurge in cases, with Public Health reporting Friday that genomic sequencing has identified more than 40 local cases of the variant, which is associated with a 50 percent increase in transmission and more severe illness.